


Still Burning Embers

by archergwen



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, F/M, Some Political Intrigue, Y E A R N I N G, a life-changing field-trip with Zuko, and then plot hecking happened, because of course, this was gonna be a one-shot whoops, war is going to have consequences in this fic, was gonna be a hot fireman prompt from tumblr, we're figuring this out together babes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2020-05-16 06:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archergwen/pseuds/archergwen
Summary: My return to fic writing after a long absence was going to be a one-shot but I can already tell it won't be. Whoops.It's been three years since Sozin's Comet should've returned - and it hasn't. The war drags on, complicated, messy, as the Avatar and his band roam shoring up defenses and helping in small raids.And in Ba Sing Se, there is no war, or rumors of war. Not even after the Fire Princess took the city in one complicated day. So in the Lower Ring, a young prince and retired prince can continue to work, disguised, silent guardians of the small world they've carved for themselves.Until an encounter, one night, wrapped in flames, ends that.





	1. Something Stupid

He grunted with effort, the heavy (unnecessary) equipment weighing him down as he strained to lift the beam to let his teammates slip under and through.

A wiggle of fingers that they could not see, or could blame on readjusting grip, and the heat became a little less oppressive for him, warm air rising and straining through the growing cracks above them. His partner exhaled in time with him as they found a ledge to rest the crossbeam on to allow passage back through for through for their teammates.

Yen Tai gave him a meaningful look, as best as he could over the breathing mask and under the helmet, for the beam was noticeably less on fire.

Zuko shrugged and bent to pick up their hose so he could continue to cool the supporting walls. The rudimentary hose system worked well enough, with barrels of water on a cart outside pumped in with a combination of gravity and someone outside willing to risk sore arms. Waterbenders could do it better, but this was a fire in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom, where earthbenders tended to be born. Not to mention, there was the matter of the war the waterbenders were all involved in.

Well, all but one, on a technicality.

Tai followed Zuko's lead and grabbed his own coil of hose, falling into the rhythm of trying to keep the way out clear as the building burned down around them. Sometimes, this helped. Sometimes the building was lost anyway. It was always at the end of the shift that the hardest calls came. Teeth clenched, Zuko breathed intentionally, chi seeking stray sparks and embers to crush before they could flare up, keep the way clear for his team to extract the rest of the family.

Anything to keep the father from picking through the ashes of a home alone.

"Can I get a lift, Lee?"

Shen Wei's voice always carried, no matter how loud the fire crackled. Zuko let the hose fall and moved to shift the beam higher. Wei slipped through, a child held in his arms.

"Where are the others?"

"Still upstairs, Shei's trying to break down a door because there's a kid behind it that the mom won't leave and is actively fighting Other Lee about it."

And then Wei was gone, out into the fresh air and safe.

As the beam settled back down, Zuko was on the other side and Tai was sighing. "You're going to do something stupid."

"Yes."

And he was gone, vanishing deeper into the burning building, fear and resolve held in a tight fist in his chest. Carefully up the stairs, some missing, he slipped to the side of the hallway to get out of the way of Shei and Lee, a quiet, still, woman thrown over the shoulder of Lee.

No kid.

"Lee! The floor and roof are collapsing! We gotta go! Did you miss the yelling outside?"

As a matter of fact, Zuko had. He nodded, ushering the two ahead of him, and then took off towards where they'd left.

"Lee you-"

He was in the room, more like a square hallway with bedrooms branching off. The door Shei had been working on was obvious, splintered and cracked, but the planks in the floor right in front of it were also splintering away.

Only his intense focus on the problem, the calculations and discarded ideas, let him hear the sniff behind the door, the quiet "mom?" echoing out into the growing roar of fire.

"Stand back from the door if you can, kid."

The faintest shuffle of steps, and Zuko breathed deep. His right leg slid back, a solid base, as he reached deep for the flow of chi inside him. His arms moved in a slow, deliberate, gathering circle, and the fire around eagerly answered the call. One slow breath, a strong step forward on the sharp exhale, and he punched fire through the door, leaping in after it over the gaps in the floor. He nearly crashed through the floor on the other side, but caught himself, and stood shakily. 

A boy shivered on his bed, wide-eyed. Zuko immediately crossed over and picked him up.

"How did you do that?"

"I'm the coolest firefighter in Ba Sing Se."

The boy nodded, accepting, and Zuko turned back to the door just as the ceiling collapsed over it. Zuko spun again to the window. "Good job keeping your shutters closed, kid. Fire needs air to grow."

And then he did something stupid.

Zuko jumped out the window, curled around the kid to keep the boy from hitting the ground first, desperately wishing he wasn't in hiding because a cushion of fire to slow his descent sounded really nice right about now.

He didn't die, surprisingly, or end up maimed. As he fell, he heard the shouts of onlookers and the horrific screech of metal popping out of wood, and then water was wrapped around him, in midair. Zuko was instantly cold, and not just from the cooling effect of the water, moved with intent, that stopped his fall and gently placed him down on his knees.

He opened his eyes to watch the water breaking apart to be flung onto the burning home according to the direction of the Fire Chief. Hwan was clearly bristling with anger, and Zuko knew he'd pay for that as well as the anger Hwan couldn't direct at the waterbender for wrecking their barrels in order to gather enough force to stop Zuko's fall.

The boy wiggled out of his arms to be enfolded into his father's, the man much less panicked now that his family was out of the house and safe.

Tai was suddenly next to him, offering a hand. "Did you burn your cover," he asked quietly.

"No," Zuko replied, ignoring the pun as he came to stand. "But she might."

Tai didn't say anything, though he clearly wanted to, and the two turned to watch the woman draped in blue move to follow the advice of their chief. Zuko was impressed by how much she'd improved. Some of her movements echoed his own gathering forms from a few moments earlier, pulling water from the air as the heat of the fire boiled more and more water away. She hadn't been able to do that the last time they'd fought, or the last time he'd watched her fight.

Another fire cart rolled up with more barrels, teammates swarming over to hook up their hoses and help.

Katara, last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribes, met Zuko's eyes as he stepped forward to help and shook her head, hard. He stopped in his tracks. She called the small globe of remaining water back to herself, murmured something to the chief, and then left him aiming straight for Zuko.

Tai instinctively stepped closer, and a smile briefly twitched across her face.

"You are his partner? Good. Keep him here. I need to check the child, but I want to inspect him before he returns to duty. It seems things inside aren't as bad as first thought." She paused meaningfully, staring at his eyes above the partial mask. He didn't bother trying to hide. She'd always been able to find him at the worst times.

"You've met before?" Tai whispered sharply as she moved away.

"It's a long story."

Zuko watched her tend to the kid, making him giggle and his family smile as she drew glowing water over him with practiced ease. Three years had given her height and deepened the steady confidence of mastery. She wasn't the bristling, over-confident teen standing against him as if bravado and righteousness of cause would make up for the lack of skill.

The way she moved now, standing with no wasted effort, bowing respectfully to the family, now she would take him seriously if they fought; she'd move with honed instinct and think less. He'd have to take her even more seriously. With a deep pang, he wished the world were different. He wanted to run off with her to some empty space and let loose, challenge that confidence. Sparring just for fun would be such a balm.

"May I," she asked, sincerely, still needing to look up at him. Three years had also given him height. He probably looked even more like his father now, not that he could be sure anymore. "I would like to check your lungs for smoke, at least, though Aang is much better at that."

He raised an eyebrow, questioning, and she smirked.

Got him.

He nodded his consent. With a quick glance to his boss - Hwan clearly staring right at them with the house fire mostly extinguished - Zuko turned his gaze to the young woman as she placed her palms, wrapped in water, directly on his chest. "How have you been?"

"Oh, the usual: fighting pirates, running blockades, the usual. Haven't you heard?"

Zuko looked over her head to the empty rooftops. "There is no war in Ba Sing Se," he murmured, so softly he doubted Tai heard.

"Still?" She was as quiet as him, hands moving to his head.

"Why should the Fire Lord change the advantageous policies of his enemies when his power is unopposed here because of them?"

"The Earth King-"

"Not here." Zuko hissed, stepping back from the intimacy of the moment. He shaped a formal bow, one from an uneducated male refugee to the Avatar's unmarried waterbending teaching, daughter of an international war hero and practically princess for it. "It has been an honor to speak with you, Master Katara, and please accept my sincerest gratitude for my life. Mine and my uncle's home is open to you, if there is any way we can even hope to be of service to you."

"Fa! Yen! If you're alive, the sooner the fire is out the sooner you're done for the night!"

There was enough lava in Hwan's voice to melt good steel. As Zuko moved back towards the only faintly burning home, he leaned towards Katara and said quietly, "do not leave here without me, please."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Water coiled back into the waterskin at her side, and she trailed respectfully behind them as the two firefighters returned to their job. Amidst the ashes and exposed framing of the walls, Zuko surreptitiously snuffed out the last few embers still burning as Wei turned around and proclaimed the building clear, safe for the family to tiptoe through and reclaim some possessions as long as they were guided by one of the team.

Katara made her move then, sketching a polite bow to the chief - a rough one, but Zuko knew everyone would ignore that detail - and requested leave to abscond with a certain firefighter to accept his offer of aid.

No one could miss Hwan's look to the empty rooftops before he gave his assent. The empty rooftops were a worrying problem, but perhaps it had been judged that if the Avatar's band had so missed the city rot the first time, perhaps they'd remain so naive three years later.

 _Aang did, probably,_ Zuko mused, also knowing this was only a temporary leave from the chewing out he was sure to receive for his stupid stunt. He knew Tai wanted to ream him out as well, though that would be less "I can't afford to have good men die on me and damage my reputation" and more "think of your uncle who has no one to provide for him when he retires." Not that Hwan wouldn't think of the latter point, it would just take him a while longer.

Tai, relentless as ever in protecting the man who he thought was just a simple colony refugee, stepped forward. "If you have no further need of me, Fire Chief, I will escort the lady to her destination with all the honor of clan Yen."

Hwan gave a dismissing gesture, turning away, washing his hands of all responsibility for any trouble the waterbender might bring down upon their heads.

Which, since Zuko now had to lead her to Uncle, was potentially a fair amount. They had skated by the past three years due to Ba Sing Se's policy of silence - no war meant no wanted posters which meant no one could recognize (former) members of the Imperial Family, as long as they stayed away from nobles or any errant Fire Nation soldiers. Working as a Lower Ring fireman or running a Middle Ring teashop provided that safety and further shield of implausibility. Everyone knew Sozin's line was the best. Why should they deign to toil among commoners as commoners?

And if they vanished - well, Zuko doubted the Dai Li were talking to the Fire Nation intelligence and vice versa, so they'd probably both assume the other had pounced on potential troublemakers. It might suck, but Zuko would bet that now could work for a breakout.

Provided Katara played along long enough.

He wasn't sure why she was silent, trailing along at a respectable distance from his right side. Maybe the time apart had calmed the riotous emotions the little band of heroes had seemed to harbor for him. Of course, life-debts helped.

Sokka had blown everything to Koh's lair in a hand-basket, in the best way possible. You didn't let in people claiming to be allies - not into the palace of the Earth King - without checking who they really were. Zuko couldn't blame him for revealing their identities then and there, either. The Water Tribes liked honesty, fair fights out in the open where the challenged knew exactly what was going on. Zuko'd heard stories of what the Northern Tribe had tried, "infiltrating" Zhao's ship. And, to be fair, Zuko hadn't really been trying to kill them the half year he chased them around the world. So Sokka couldn't have known Azula would react with deadly desperation.

As usual with the Avatar, no one _he_ knew died. But there were palace guard widows Uncle had brought soup to, after, though nothing really helped after a fourteen year old narrowly took the city down in one day with only two other teenagers.

And Zuko, he'd gotten them out, when all was almost all lost. Gotten that stupid bison out. Gotten home feeling like he was going to die of shame - he'd disobeyed his father! He'd helped the Avatar! He'd been sick for days after - to find Uncle had smuggled the Earth King out and half the Dai Li and had been doing much more than playing Pai Sho on his breaks at the tea shop. So at least treason ran in the family.

"We're being followed."

Katara, to her credit, didn't react. Tai looked like he'd been slapped with a fish and was told to like it. "What? Who? How dare they! I ought to-"

"You'll do nothing but keep walking with us, Tai. We're three obvious people walking together away from a disturbance. Uncle will be prepared for this." On second thought- "Tai, you know where the Jasmine Dragon is?"

"Of course."

"Then you'll be a perfect escort. Don't go in without me, though." Zuko smiled. "I want to see Uncle's face."

He let the flow of the evening crowd pull him naturally apart from the other two until he could slip down an alley and onto a roof. Night was settling in, which would make it all the more easier to tell who belonged up here, and who didn't. Who was walking somewhere with intent, and who was tailing them. At home, he started the hunt.


	2. Alleyway Intrigues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: death is described in this chapter

_He has changed,_ Katara thought, determined not to follow Zuko with her eyes and give him away. _I don't know what I expected. Not him, I suppose._

He was a surprise, and a welcome one. As she'd grown, Katara had come to appreciate the simple single-mindedness of the hotheaded prince she'd once known. Until Ba Sing Se, they'd left only property damage behind them, not bodies - except for the North Pole, of course. Wow did they regret that, when there was time to think about it.

If she could go back in time, there were things about that last night in Ba Sing Se that she'd change, but only if she could still end up accidentally allied with him.

The streets Firefighter Yen led her through seemed familiar, though that could easily be the strange hypnotism of such a large city. There was no other like it - that she knew of - and certainly none she could easily get to now. More likely, these were familiar streets because she'd been down them before, burned into her memory three years ago.

They had gone to ground as best they could when Azula took the city, lightning missing Aang by a gnat's width and Katara's bending half-sabotaged by one of Azula's cronies. But then hadn't been completely taken down, they'd slipped into the larger city, unable (and one unwilling) to escape completely with Appa still missing. They'd been found two days later by a small group of soldiers while sneaking to a new position; alarms had sounded, and it had been a harrowing race through city streets trying to keep together and stay alive. Toph had started to yell a warning when a hand reached out and snatched Aang into a side alley.

Of course they'd raced in after him, ready to fight, ready to maybe kill and maybe die, but Zuko - how was it always Zuko, of all people - had merely ducked past their blows, shoving them deeper down the alley - not a dead end, they could've kept running - and turning his back on them as if they weren't a threat, weren't his target. She remembered the irrational indignation, the fear and fury rising in a practiced wave to the back of her throat like a habit as he ran from them towards the men entering the alley after them.

It wasn't until he was spinning that Katara had seen the swords.

He'd stood out against their Fire Nation pursuers in his plain, greenish-brown robes with shaggy hair, looking like a simple shop boy fallen into a spirit tale. Sokka held Aang until the flashing swords stopped and the three soldiers lay dead in the alley.

The two blades clicked together across his back, and he bent towards the first body. That was when Sokka had moved, and something ached like the world falling open beneath her feet as her brother helped their oldest personal enemy hide his kills - deaths dealt for their sake, not his - out of sight. Here, in the dark, in the thick fog of fear permeating the city that denied the war's existence, that was when the war sank in, personal, real, bleeding quietly, uselessly, in a dark alley because the men had to be cleanly killed, not left injured. They'd seen all five faces, and the kids couldn't fly away from their problems this time.

Aang had trembled like a leaf, half a breath from the "how could you" that might have ruined everything. But Zuko's sad eyes - gold turned dark in some emotion she never wanted in see in her eyes, or Sokka's, but oh she had the last three years - met hers and his voice crackled a whisper: "Follow me."

Following him was like trying to follow a spirit. It was exactly the same three years later until he melted away, leaving her with a stranger vastly out of his depth, she'd bet. He was also eyeing her suspiciously; she could tell.

"So, how does a waterbender get to know a refugee from the colonies?"

Inwardly, Katara thanked him for his accidental gift of information. "Well, with what he is a refugee from, it's quite easy for those of different nations to meet, share some misadventures, owe each other some things." _Or blows._ She chuckled at her own private joke. 

The fireman's eyes narrowed. "Oh? And what is he refugee from?"

Her eyes narrowed right back. If he was going to play that game, she would. "I do wonder so at a city that keeps its best defense ignorant of danger. I kindly ask you, when do you think I might be able to get an audience with the Earth King? I have several important petitions to plead, and I understand it's best to go straight to the top with those."

"He's on a spiritual retreat, indefinite in length, they tell us. To reconnect with the spirit of the kingdom."

"Mmmm, no wonder it's taking our mutual friend a moment longer than expected to rid us of uninvited guests. Here-" Katara yanked him into an alley that opened up, pulling his chest close as she threw her back against a wall several feet down into the alley. "By the way, do you know who I am? I am afraid I don't know your name, so I would like to trade."

"Yen Tai," he started, shaken physically and likely also emotionally. "Lee did share your name but-"

As two figures stepped into the alley, she pulled the unsuspecting Tai into a kiss, one hand holding his torso close the other clenching his shoulder to hold him still. Katara rolled Tai around, twisting them deeper into the alley and giving her a chance to snatch a glimpse of those entering the alley. The figures - Fire Nation soldiers from the silhouettes - shook their heads and moved on. Katara pressed away from Tai with an apologetic smile. "The best way to make people ignore you is to make them uncomfortable." The fireman flushed red, visible even in the dark. "Please accept my apologies; I didn't think I had time to warn you."

"Apology accepted; do never do that again."

"That is what an apology means, doesn't it?"

A pale hand reached down from the roofs, and Katara instinctively grabbed it. She looked up to meet Zuko's gaze, a faint smile on his face. "Not in every culture, princess." 

Using his arm, the wall, and a bit of a boost from Tai, Katara clambered up to sit next to him. "Princess? What happened to peasant?"

Zuko also flushed red, one hand reaching to the back of his neck. "Ah, well, I didn't know who your dad was at the time. A lot of things make sense in retrospect, knowing that. Does it help if I say I'm sorry?"

"Softie," she retorted, as if they weren't young adults under the shadow of war. "Apology accepted. For everything."

He spluttered. "I didn't-"

Her hands came up in mock defense, as Tai made his way onto the roof with them. "Hey, I apologize, too. Doesn't mean I would have done anything different with what I knew then." He blinked, slowly, never taking his eyes off hers. "Lead the way, honorable ally. We have a lot of catching up to do." She paused, smirked. _"Lee."_

Zuko rolled his eyes, motioning for them to follow. He moved slowly, at first, showing Katara and Tai how to place their feet on the tiled roofs to make little sound and slide less. They didn't quite get to Zuko's skill - not with only two city blocks to navigate - but they weren't an embarrassment nor were they caught, which may have been the more important considerations. 

Katara's first impression of the Jasmine Dragon tea shop - dropping into an alley across the street from it into Zuko's waiting arms out of courtesy - was that it was exactly the type of place she wanted to be lost in, and would have spent hours here had she found it three years ago - well, probably not as she would've poorly reacted to seeing General Iroh. But if she hadn't, she would have loved the warm glow, the small tables designed to foster intimate conversations or ensure some peace and quiet for however long the tea lasted. She sighed, a little happily, as Tai dropped down beside them.

"I'm glad your uncle has done so well for himself."

Tai quietly chuckled. "I'm looking forward to see it all undone by his pride in your finally bringing a girl home."

Zuko seemed to choke as Katara echoed the chuckle, striking out on her own to walk towards the shop. "Well my boys, lets go."

"My boys?" she heard Zuko echo, but also the scurry of their feet to keep up with her. The bell over the door let out a merry ring as she stepped through, and both aged proprietor and busy waitstaff paused to take in the trio entering the shop. Understanding crossed General Iroh's face as his employees returned to their jobs, mostly cleaning up as there were few patrons.

Zuko stepped forward, offering what Katara guessed was a familial bow - certainly not as deep as what he'd offered her - and addressed his uncle. "Honored Uncle, Master Katara is here and has need of conference with Mushi and Lee of the colonies."

"I see. Do show her to the upper tea room, will you? I'll be there in a moment to see how we can assist an honorable ally."

WIth a nod, Zuko led her and Tai to the back staircase. Halfway up the second floor, he turned to his friend. "Tai, this is the last chance you'll have to back out. You can take a cup of Uncle's tea as thank you for the escort and leave, honor intact, no attachment to us and this night."

Tai rocked with the information. "I knew it. I knew you were part of the resistance. I want in."

"In that case," Zuko started back up the stairs, Uncle appearing at the bottom of the steps. "I should properly introduce myself, and Uncle." Zuko stepped through the doors into the room, ushering everyone inside before closing the door. "Yen Tai, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Katara of the Southern Water Tribes, master waterbender since the age of fourteen, daughter of Chief Hakoda, and personal teacher of the Avatar."

Katara gave a little wave to the shocked fireman.

"I must also introduce my uncle, retired General Iroh of the Fire Nation armies, former Crown Prince to the Imperial Throne, and Dragon of the West."

Tai's gaze snapped between the older, smiling man and the younger one. "But that- you- what."

Zuko bowed. "Nice to meet you, Yen Tai, officially. I am Zuko, exiled prince of the Fire Nation, rightful heir to the throne but a little too busy with treason to worry about that."

General Iroh leaned forward and started to pour some tea. "Shall we discuss the rumors of the Earth King that have brought our lovely guest to us?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot promise updates this quickly going forward


	3. Rumors and Truth

"What do you mean the Earth King isn't moving on the city?"

Tai had been ushered away less than half an hour ago, not needing (not trusted enough for) the private signs and signals to communicate with other members of the resistance. Better he think it a small group who chanced a meeting with the Avatar's teacher tonight, then be burdened with the full secret.

It had taken so long to get past the shock and multitude of questions the city native had posited it was almost an old memory itself. Tai had fessed up to one of many stories Zuko hoped to keep from Uncle, namely plunging into fire to pull his partner out, obviously and unmistakably firebending in front of Tai alone to get them both to safety when he could've saved just himself and not risked death. But Tai had kept that secret, had found ways to make it easier for Zuko to tame house-fires in the way only he could. It was why Zuko had trusted him with his name, and Uncle's, at all.

Tai had questioned him then, questioned why he hadn't taken Azula out three years ago, challenged her and wrestled the city free.

"Because," Katara began for him, "he had a bigger problem: getting the Avatar out of the city alive. And as Zuko made abundantly clear in the dark of a tunnel out of the city-

_"I'm an exile, Aang! An exile! If I set foot on Fire Nation soil, I can be killed on sight. And Azula? She just made this whole city the Fire Nation. So you are going to get out of this city, and you are going to get out of it alive, and I - with the one person who can keep the Dai Li from turning me into toothpaste smeared on some rocks - will get your damn bison out since you won't think of your friends or the world or your own life if it means leaving your pet behind!"_

"-he is an exile. Azula, by taking over the city, made it part of the Fire Nation. If he was caught, he would be killed, possibly before reaching Azula. It didn't make sense to challenge her, not when Aang needed to get out of the city."

Zuko did appreciate her minor edits. It had been rather uncharitable of him; Appa was Aang's last living link to his culture and home. Zuko probably would have reacted the same way, had he only an animal left of home, and not Uncle. Which, Uncle had also turned up some research that suggested the bison wasn't just a pet, but rather something much deeper. Zuko would need to apologize to the airbender, if they met again.

"Azula might have just tried to pull me into her scheme, or had me imprisoned. I don't think that would be the case now."

"Yes," Iroh had cut in. "I had contingencies in case you were caught and thrown in prison. I'm glad we never had to use them. But now, three years after you failed to throw your support behind the occupation? Three years she's had to proclaim you dead and revel in being your father's heir? You are needed for our plans, nephew. Don't get caught."

"You have too many plans that require me to be alive, Uncle." He winced internally after he'd said it - Tai wasn't used to war, or death, or the real depths of the inevitability of death that surrounded Zuko, so his shock was to be expected. Uncle's quiet disappointment and sorrow in the face of such emotion was a constant rock Zuko could lean on and handle, but Katara. Shit, Katara had looked like she understood, like she _knew_ what it meant to know you were responsible for going out, but that didn't mean you always got to come back. And sometimes, you went in knowing you had almost no chance getting out, because death was coming for you anyway, might as well hit it first and know you snatched a kid out from death's claws, too.

She had broken the uncomfortable silence, too, saved him again. "I hope you have been practicing. Toph, Aang, and I, we've all picked up some new skills. You'd better be able to keep up."

"Oh, I think I can catch you guys this time."

She'd laughed then, unexpected and delighted, and that sound he was holding onto as she slammed her hands on the table in disbelief, anger, and the fear those emotions were trying to hide - the Pai Sho board bouncing and its meaningful, talkative tiles scattering.

"The message came through the proper channels! They had the right codes and sign-offs, addressing me or the rest of the team by our codenames. And now you're telling me that was wrong? That the Earth King isn't making a move?" Iroh tapped his fingers on the table in a distinctive rhythm, an old theme from the underground earthbending matches that hadn't been played in a long time, its champion a little busy teaching right now. Katara paled, drawing herself up, rigid. 

"You have spoken with many members of our organization, young Master Katara. You know how many layers -" Iroh stooped to pick up the lotus tile that had ended their "game." "-we have, so it is possible someone erred. Who send you the message?"

"It was signed, 'The Blue Spirit.' I am unsure their real identity, of course."

"Of course," Iroh replied with a tilt of the head. Zuko resolutely did not even glance at him. "I do, however, know that operative's scope. They have not even met Earth King Kuei, so they could not possibly know the king's plans. As I would trust that operative with my own life, and know they would never out-step their orders, there is but one option left."

"A spy."

The silent agreement hung in the air.

"Tell me," Zuko began slowly, "that Aang isn't also on his way here."

"Not that I know of." She politely ignored his sigh of relief. "He's, well, he's vanished again-"

"Again?"

"He'll reappear soon enough, usually right when most convenient or most annoying. Rather like you, actually. But he always pops up with some new skill or philosophy to mull over because he found yet another mountain sage and got distracted learning. The last one, well, he's been desperately trying to find a way to end the war like an Air Nomad. He's been silent about that ever since, and I-" she broke off. "I'm sorry; I'm sharing gossip about a boy when we have bigger problems right here."

Iroh leaned forward. "As long as young people can be distracted from worrying about the whole world by worrying about their loved ones, something is still right with the world. Now, we need to figure out if we can identify the leak. I will get someone on changing everything, or at least preparing the change, but that does us no good if the spy gets their hands on the new codes."

Zuko turned to Katara. "I bet the information is in Long Feng's desk."

"He's still here?"

"No, my sister threw him out long ago which as a fellow manipulator he should have seen coming, honestly, but I figured you'd have an idea of what I meant better than if I'd said Sheng Tzu's desk. Are you in?"

She smiled, darkly. "Of course I am in."

Iroh frowned. "No. I forbid this. It is reckless and unwise."

"Which is precisely why it will work. I've broken into the stranger, worse places. With a change of clothes, I'll be fine."

"Nephew-"

"He broke into the North Pole, General Iroh. If you have a spare set of clothes, it will be even better. He will have someone to watch his back."

Iroh looked between them in the ensuing silence before sighing. He stood, slowly, playing up his age, and Zuko and Katara stood as well. "Alright. I think I still have one of the sets from when Zuko was smaller that might fit you, Master Katara. Give me a moment." Clearly disappointed in them both, Iroh left the room. 

Zuko turned to Katara. "When we're breaking in, it is absolutely imperative that you do not bend. You cannot give yourself away like that, unless we want to leave an obvious trail of bodies. Are you going to be able to-"

In two strong steps she crossed to him, throwing an easily deflected punch followed by another accompanied by a testing knee kick. His hand batted her knee away, ducking under the other blow, and she echoed his deflecting strike with one of her own, trying to spin around him to get at his back. He turned with her, tossing out testing, teasing strikes to follow her lead. She smirked at him suddenly, and it was all he could do to push back at her blows without also destroying Uncle's furniture. One more spin, a desperate lunge and grab, and they both froze, just barely panting with the effort. They each had their left hand holding onto the left shoulder of the other, fabric bunching, forearms held just at the other's throat and right fist pulled back as if to strike at the other's face.

She blinked, blue eyes disappearing beneath delicate eyelashes for the merest second.

He was right. Sparring with her was a balm, one he didn't know he'd needed until he'd had an insufficient taste. Slowly, he let go of her shoulder, and she his, fists releasing to their sides. "Where did you learn that?"

"I had Suki teach me a few things, when there was time. Ty Lee won't get another free shot."

"Good," said Iroh, reappearing with two sets of black clothing, masks included. "That attitude means it will be very clear if things go wrong."

"I'll try to keep it to light arson, so that Kuei has something to come back to."

Iroh pulled him into a hug - Katara looked away to give them privacy. "I much prefer it when you just sneak out, and I don't have to know. Don't have to worry. I'll miss our quiet life here. You have been so happy, and I'm glad I could get to see it before destiny came crashing back in."

"Uncle, I'll come back. Nothing has to change."

Iroh only sighed, pulling away to hand them both what they needed to spirit away into the dark and into danger.


	4. Rooftop Romp

Katara raced along the rooftops of Ba Sing Se after Zuko. They needed to travel up and out of the way for as long as possible; apparently the fancier, more separated homes of the Upper Ring would hinder that. Zuko could pull it off, but while she'd done plenty of sneaking the past three years-

Leaping over an alley, Katara landed wrong, a foot slipping off the gutter to dangle in empty air as her body slammed down onto the tiles.

Zuko's rough, warm hand grasped her wrist, hard, counterbalancing gravity and stopping any potential slide off the roof. He froze, crouched on the roof and clothed in deep, gray-ish blue, leaning away from her until she pulled her knee up and was no longer in danger of falling. He stood with her, silent as ever, and waited while she tested her leg for pain.

Katara signaled she was okay, and the rooftop race began again.

Frustration bubbled up against her will. She kept her gaze forward, tracking where Zuko placed his feet to try and ape him even further, to get faster, get better. It did sting to learn the (reformed, she was confident) jerkbender was better than her at something that didn't have to do with their bending elements. It was hard to hold on to the thought "this is only my second time; of course I'm not perfect" while she was trying to keep up with someone who could flit from roof to roof like a spirit. Katara drew in a deep breath through her nose for as long as could as she ran and deliberately let it out.

"So why firefighting," she asked, sending the question forward into the night.

Zuko nearly made his first mis-step of their run, but he slowed to pace beside her. "What?"

"Why be a firefighter? You didn't have to do anything so dangerous to occupy your time, and your uncle probably would have given you a job."

"Well, he did, actually, when we first arrived. He got me a waitstaff position at the same teashop he was hired for; it- it went okay. I'm not always the best with people-" Katara smiled wryly, eyes on the rooftops ahead of her. "-but all twisted up as a brand new refugee to the city? I was even worse. I was half a broken door from getting both Uncle and me fired before Azula took over, and in the chaos of getting you out I was in the right place to help at a burning house on my way home. It stuck."

He paused, and when Katara didn't add anything - thinking, wondering, grasping for more questions - he spoke. "Can I ask about Aang and lungs? What is he better at than you with healing?"

"Ah, well, if it was the full moon I'd show you what led to this discovery. But Aang, after much practice and if he focuses - La, at least we have something to force him to focus, now-" she joked. "-Aang can feel, just feel, right now, air in lungs, and direct me to tricker, fine-tuned problems. It's amazing - it's not healing like I do, I don't think, though - and has implications for all bending, I think, but he's honestly terrified to try more."

"Why terrified?"

"All medicines are poisons," she replied, slow and deliberate like she'd heard the saying a thousand times. At this point she was pretty sure she had. "It's not terrible on its own, but in light of everything else we've learned over the past few years." She paused, breathed, slipped around a chimney. "What I learned, I am going to wrest good from it."

"But it was born in evil."

"In pain," she quickly replied. "But yes, in evil. And feeling the air in someone's lungs? How it moves? If it's catching on fluid or scarring?"

"Yeah, I can guess how bad that could go."

"Yeah," she echoed sadly, and then brightened at a thought. "Wait until you see what Toph figured out, though. And no, I'm not going to spoil it for you. She'll want to see your face."

Zuko slowed to a stop as they approached the wall between the rings, the higher palace wall beyond them. "I look forward to it."

He'd led them to where a determined tree allowed to easy access over the wall. Once they had dropped into someone's garden, he held a hand up in front of where his mouth would be, behind the cloth mask. She nodded, and they began to duck and weave through the streets. She understood the choice of dark blue, instead of black. Ba Sing Se was never dark, not completely. Someone was always up, someone always had a light, and with the moon to boot it never got pitch black outside. They'd stand out, ironically enough.

It definitely gave them an edge. They left a few palace guards tied up on the edge of the grounds, but instead of heading for the doors, Zuko led her to the side, creeping along the wall and mostly out of sight.

"How are we supposed to scale that," she whispered angrily, gesturing at the perfectly smooth wall rising at a gentle angle to dwarf everything nearby.

"We're not."

He stopped, lifting a grate to a storm drain in the pathway they'd followed, and dropped down - a light splash told her it was a short drop. Katara had no choice but to follow him into the darkness, which she did, pausing only to make sure she would close the grate behind her as she dropped.

Zuko caught her, easily, bending just a little with the physics of catching her. She smiled - that he could not see, both for the darkness and the mask - and quipped, "twice in heist? A girl might think you're getting ideas." She practically _heard_ him blush with how his breath caught and the way his muscles tensed even as he gently set her down. "Do you not get to joke much with your coworkers? Either set? I'm sorry if I offended you. It wasn't my intent, so I'll stop."

"It's- it's fine, Katara. I accept your apology." He started walking away, hesitating so she knew to follow. "And no, we don't joke much. Ba Sing Se, it can suck the life out of you before you've noticed it, I guess."

She hummed thoughtfully in reply, following mostly by knowing where he was in the water. He led them down a couple ladders - he must have memorized a map or they'd be dead - before taking her breath away.

The drain opened into a vast chamber, glowing green from the multitude of luminescent stones embedded in the walls. The drain turned into a block-ish canal system partially fed from a waterfall Katara's senses told her led to open air. Squat homes dotted the open space, sparingly - far more appeared to be carved into the side of the chamber. It looked old, magnificent, a palace beneath the palace. Her people would never have something like this - would never want it, but still. 

Zuko gave her a minute of awe, and then gently nudged her towards a large opening on the opposite side of the chamber from them. Though she didn't initially see anyone, Zuko still kept to the shadows and edges, so she followed his lead.

Then she saw them.

"Zuko, there's people in there."

"Yes," he replied, just as quietly. "The Dai Li use this place as prison for particularly stubborn non-benders before transport."

"Transport? For the creepy thing Toph saw helping you?"

"Yeah. Remind me to explain if she didn't once we're out."

"Zuko, if this is a prison, why aren't there guards?"

He glanced at her as they crouched by the passageway. "Don't need them if you've sealed your prisoners in earth, and they can't bend it away."

"That's awful."

He only nodded in reply, and they crept up the passageway, nerves taunt, for it was a long passage with no doors along the way. They'd be toast if someone came down to check, and they knew it, which didn't make it any easier to move silently, and slower than they wanted to, towards that door to the palace.

No guards came through, and the door was unlocked.

In the impenetrable city, why would you lock a door with only prisoners in secure cells on the other side?

Zuko must have also studied a map of the palace, for he moved with intent through the halls of the palace, never once seeming to question where he was going or wonder which path to take, only looking for guards or Dai Li as they went. She watched his back, helped him check all angles. Both of them remembered to look up - it was amazing how many times you could get the drop on someone just by going up when they didn't expect it.

There never were Dai Li.

Only palace guards seemed to be at their posts. It was easy enough to sneak up on them as a team, leaping forward as one. Katara preferred to wrap a hand over the mouth and her elbow around the throat, choking them silently into subconscious. Zuko followed suit after the first argument over cranial trauma and the irresponsibility of relying on getting the blow to the head right the first time to incapacitate, not wound and raise the alarm.

They moved higher into the palace, to where they began to see desks in the rooms where they stowed their unconscious, trussed up guards.

Still no Dai Li.

Doubt creeps in, every now and again, even when unlooked for. And to be sneaking through the Earth King's palace - while Ba Sing Se is under contested Fire Nation occupation thanks to the help of some Dai Li - and not see any members of the shadowy organization? That reeked of a trap.

But for who?

For the resistance in the city, who had to have figured out there was a leak at some point? For anyone who wandered in at night?

For her, who had been noticed coming into the city and then immediately, publicly saved lives?

At the next crossroads, Katara eyed Zuko from the corner of her eye. Who was he, really? Yes, he'd risked so much to get her - and the Avatar! - out of the city three years ago, directly acting against his sister, though Azula probably still didn't know that. Katara had been saddened - and skeptical - hearing reports of his death, since he'd not been recognized nor reappeared with his sister's victory. No one had thought he was dead - Zuko never did know how to stop and give up - especially with no verifiable reports of a body. Perhaps that had been the plot all along? Maybe he _was_ the spy? A plant from his father?

Oh, but Iroh. He was too genuine to be a traitor. He'd tried to save the moon! Knowing Admiral Zhao would be reporting back to the Fire Lord on everything - well, until Tui intervened. And how could you live with Iroh and not be somewhat decent?

Katara followed Zuko into the largest office yet. "Watch out for traps. I have no idea what sort of man Sheng Tzu is." 

She could not for the life of her figure out what that tone of voice meant. Was she right and he was on to her? Was he trying to be helpful? She knew there was no option but to play along, staying calm. She could take Zuko, if she had to. It was only a partial moon, but there was the moon to draw strength from. If things went bad, she'd cut and run back to the storm drain.

Less nervous now that she had a plan, Katara joined him in methodically, carefully searching the office, trying to put things back exactly as they had been found. Around the edges of the room, she found no traps, no hidden compartments, and apparently neither did Zuko. The scrolls and books didn't have notes poking out or any obvious notes tucked between their words, either. They split the desk, each taking half.

"Hey, look."

He slid her some parchment with strange writing on it. It certainly appeared official, and it looked almost legible, like it was one twist of a wheel from being comprehensible. "A cipher?"

"I think so. I bet someone can crack it, if we don't find a key. Can you hold on to it?"

She tucked the writing away, and her doubts. She opened a drawer, which was empty.

That didn't make sense. Not with how much paper was still on the desk to be rifled through. She ran her fingers lightly around the edges of the drawer until she felt something off. "Hey, I think I found something, too." Zuko turned towards her as she pressed down in the drawer. There was a click, and a panel in the side popped open, more papers tucked inside.

There was a polite cough. "Good evening."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol you can tell I'm out of practice because it took me basically until now to realize I never physically described my OC, Yen Tai. Whoops. I'll fix that in post.


	5. A Conversation

Zuko's hands reflectively curled, ready to throw fire. Katara also seemed to tense beside him, fingers close to the revealed secrets.

The stranger was not tense. He was the tall, lanky sort of fellow who might have reached such proportions by being stretched on the rack as much as by good genetics and being well-fed through puberty. He took a long step to the side, moving away from the completely solid interior wall Katara had checked herself. With a twist of fingers, a stone panel popped out like it was a cabinet door, not solid stone. He pulled out a labeled bottle, sealed at the top with wax, and three cups.

He turned, fixing bright green eyes on the intruding duo. "Might I offer you a drink?"

The hand holding the cups twisted over itself and the stone cabinet closed, looking as if it never had been there. He stepped towards the desk, and both Katara and Zuko visibly tensed. Katara bent closer to the drawer, hands half a breath from grabbing the pages in the hidden compartment. Zuko's arms automatically raised into a defensive firebending stance, ready but not throwing fire, and he only remembered at the last moment to disturb the forms, to hide behind perceived incompetence.

"Are you from the Fire Princess then?"

Neither of the two moved, just breathed, tense.

"Ah. Well, if you are Fire Nation spies, I shall have to write to the princess about your quality." He leaned a little forward.

Katara spoke then, trying to keep a rasp in her voice. "Because we got caught?"

"No, because normally her spies immediately start throwing fire or knives when they are." The stranger took a sudden long step forward in their surprise to stand on the other side of the desk, glasses clinking down on the table. "There, isn't that better? If you please?" He offered the bottle towards them. Zuko recognized it, a dark liquor of medium price Uncle had shared with him for celebratory dinners once he'd deemed Zuko old enough. "It's a new bottle, sealed with wax and I do not know who could bend it open to tamper. But if it will ease your minds, you can open it."

Zuko accepted the bottle, taking the letter opener off the man's desk to pry the wax and stopper free. He poured a sensible portion of baijiu into one glass, and set the bottle down near the stranger.

"Ah, the masks. Of course. Well, more for me."

He picked up the glass, swirling it slightly, toasted them, and took a long sip. "Excellent. Sure you don't want any? Alright then. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Shang Tzu, leader of the Dai Li. I even think you knew that, or you would not have hesitated so much. Tell me, please, why you kept going into my trap?"

Zuko looked towards Katara at her small start. She settled, though, and began, "would you have let us pull out?."

"Did you think you could fight out?" Both of them straightened up with a synchronized breath, and Sheng Tzu lifted both hands - and thus the cup - defensively. "I apologize for the accidental threat. I have not known many who could take on the Dai Li and win. I understand, desperation for information can make even the best of organizations do ill-advised things. So, since you're not working for the Fire Princess, and I want her out of my city, why don't we make a deal?"

A chair moved from the wall as the floor rippled, and Sheng Tzu settled into it without looking, propping his feet up on his own desk. He was still as calm and even as he'd been appearing before them, despite the bending that he had to be performing - or perhaps relying on others to perform. But after what Azula pulled, Zuko doubted any leader of the Dai Li would be counting on unwavering loyalty for a long time. So, assume he opened a door in his wall - two including one for the baijiu - completely silently and on his own. There may have been manipulation of the floor to get close to the desk in one step, and there was definitely a high level of bending on display.

Zuko swallowed a sense of foreboding.

"You can look through the papers you worked so hard for if you want. We have some time." He took another sip, savoring.

Katara quickly rifled through the drawer. "You don't have what we need."

"Ah. You mean the information on who started the rumor about the Earth King's return? You're right. I don't. I'm starting to suspect the Fire Nation. Lure all your enemies into a spot where one fireball can take them all out together? Very Fire, that. The rebel Dai Li spiriting the king and some generals away three years ago kept that from happening to our armies, thank Oma and Shu. You've proved their point, I'm afraid, in coming here. But I have an idea for that.

"Now, what we both want from each other is information."

Katara's weight settled onto one leg. "What do you want, specifically, in terms of information?"

"To start, who is the leader of your organization? Come now, it's not that surprising of an ask. After all, you know my name and the leader of my organization - it is me, but my point stands, I believe. I do not know who you are, and I only know who you don't work for - me, again, and the Fire Nation."

"We don't have to tell you that-" Katara began, just as Zuko replied,

"The Earth King."

Sheng Tzu's feet hit the floor. "What."

Zuko reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out a small medallion of stone - easy for earthbenders to make many of them all at once - and handed it to Sheng Tzu as the man rose, half afraid half in wonder. There was but one design on it, the swirls and whorls of a thumbprint and beneath it a single name - Kuei. 

Green eyes met golden. _"How."_

"The king has grown up, like all of us, in war. Seems it is rather difficult to be an effective ruler when there is a puppet-master keeping you on strings, keeping your blinded to the strings and your deficiencies. He looks to his return, and there will be war in Ba Sing Se, though not now. You've seen how close the numbers swing. He cannot step back into the city and lose it again. Not and hold it once the war ends."

"And with the princess arriving tomorrow on some imperial inspection tour-" Zuko sucked in more air than he ever had in his life. "-it will be even harder for him to return, of course." Sheng Tzu turned away, thinking.

"She can't die here," Katara began. "That will ruin thousands of lives as the Fire Lord avenges his only heir, and gains us nothing. Let her come, and let her leave. You still haven't told us the rest of what you want."

Sheng Tzu turned back, eyeing Zuko like he wanted to rip the mask off. "One of these days, I should like to work together. Of course I could have tried to contact you, but how could we be trusted after so far a fall." He sighed. "Kyoshi would be disappointed, I think. You will take those, then, back to His Majesty?"

Zuko nodded.

"Good!" Sheng Tzu kicked the chair backwards, and it splintered as it fell. "Well, I think I cleansing fire would be good for my office, wouldn't you say? I have some matches in my-"

Zuko punched a small dagger of flame past Sheng Tzu's ear, blooming into a delightful spiral as it spun through the air so splatter scorch marks over the wall. 

"Well, that was unexpected. Other friend, be a dear and-" Katara seized the bottle of baijiu and hurled it at the wall behind her. The glass shattered, clear liquid spreading down the walls. "That's the spirit!" He ripped a door open in the wall. "That will take you to the catacombs you came in through. Be quick about it after-"

He never did finish that sentence, as Katara stepped up to him, grabbed his head, and he sank quietly to the floor, unconscious. She grabbed part of the chair, smashed it against the floor, and then laid it carelessly next to Sheng Tzu like a fallen improvised weapon. She turned to Zuko. "Be a dear and smash his desk? He will wake in a few minutes - without brain damage! - but we should hide more evidence that he's letting us go."

"If he really is letting us go."

She smirked, underneath the mask, but that head tilt and spark in her eyes was immistakable. "Then we fight our way out. We could, and you know it."

He did. That's what was so terrifying.

Their egress back through the catacombs and storm drains was much more direct than their entry. Zuko kept them moving through the shadows of the Upper Ring once they'd gotten out of the ground, kept them racing for a large, friendly tree near the wall.

"Do you really work for the Earth King," she whispered in the branches as Zuko plotted their jump.

"Eh. Uncle and I work with him."

She chuckled. "Of course. Do you think he knew who we were?"

"If he's smart, he didn't let himself figure it out. So when Azula arrives, and Azula does, he can be honestly surprised. That might be the difference between staying where he is and joining Long Feng in a cell on Boiling Rock."

"And you told him about the Earth King."

"I didn't know she was coming," he hissed back, fear and anger and shame curling white hot around every hushed word. "I didn't know and now she is and I don't know what to do."

"Get out."

He stared at her. "What?"

"Get out. Come with me. Aang has a grasp of fire, but it's not mastery. We, we have an idea of who we need to finish his training, and we'll need you, I think. Especially after what I've seen tonight. Don't look at me like that! We're only trying to break into Boiling Rock."

"You're really making the case for me to come with you."

She glanced up at him through a few twigs and those eyelashes. "It might be fun. And it gets you away from your sister while sticking your thumb in her eye, metaphorically speaking." 

"You're insane. I have a job to go back to in a few days. I have - _acquaintances._ And Tai is my friend. I can't just leave because the Avatar asked."

"The Avatar didn't ask. I did."

He knew. That's what made it so terrifying. 

"I'll think on it. Follow me." 

It was a wild jump, and he nearly missed. His hands dug in and he pulled himself up. He turned back, settled low, ready to grab Katara. She followed him, aiming past him, past where she wanted to land. She still might have slipped off, fingers not quite as used to it as he was. But he grabbed on to her forearms as she hit, giving her the time to settle, adjust, and pull herself up. The rest of the run back to his home was not nearly as stressful, especially as Zuko felt more comfortable moving slowly. He ushered Katara through his uncle's open window before following, closing the shutters behind him. 

"I'm going to sleep for a week." 

"Welcome back, nephew, Katara." Uncle lit a lamp with a finger. "I am glad to see you are alive." 

"Katara has the documents we grabbed. I'm going to bed. See you both tomorrow." 

As he left, thoughts swirling, Zuko heard his uncle's sleepy chuckle as he replied, "Good night. Now, Master Katara, I've readied our guest room for you, unless you have other accommodations?" 

"I'm honored to be your guest." 

_Good,_ thought Zuko as he fell onto his bed and almost immediately fell asleep. 


	6. Take a Breath...

Sheng Tzu opened his eyes, trying to drag himself back to life as fast as possible.

 _Youths,_ he internally muttered, dragging his fingers across the floor, grateful he'd woken within only a few minutes after whatever the water- his mind deliberately stuttered over that thought and restarted - whatever the intruders had done to him. The passageway to the city closed up, and he dragged every trace of chi he could from the block of wall.

Not all of it - it was a well-used passage. It would be strange if there was no trace he'd ever bent that wall.

He rolled over, pulling shards of the wall and floor with him and scattering them across the office haphazardly. He partially opened the path back to his room, pulling some more of the stone loose and hurling it towards the wall near where his desk lay in pieces. Sheng Tzu eyed his ruined desk, papers scattered, bottle smashed against the wall, done no doubt to hide the pilfered documents. Well, there was no accounting for taste, or youthful vigor. He did appreciate their scattering of the cups. He hoped they looked like improvised projectiles.

Retroactive relief flooded him as the door burst open, and one of his junior - thus untrusted, untested, uninformed - agents rushed in. The boy - grown adult but boy - was followed by a more senior agent, whose careful mask of worry flickered only when looking to Sheng Tzu for confirmation of success.

The junior agent - Bo Pin, he remembered - rushed to his side. "What happened, Leader Sheng Tzu?"

He started to lift himself up and groaned in response, not faked. He was getting older than he let on, and something about the balance in his head was slightly off. With that and the ache of hitting a stone floor, he was a little stiff. "First, Agent Bo, I have reminded you before, 'sir' will suffice. We are all loyal servants of Ba Sing Se, and such honorifics are necessary. Second, why don't you tell me what you see? What you can draw for conclusions. I was knocked unconscious, and so missed their escape."

"Is this really the time, sir?"

Sheng Tzu held out an arm for the younger man to help him up. "It is always the time to improve your skills. But, if you prefer, your partner can begin." He looked to the other agent, Ru, who would be second were sacrifices not necessary to keep the Fire Nation at arm's length.

Ru, at least, could understand and approve of such things, which did make him a perfect second - and future leader, Oma and Shu protect him - for the Dai Li.

Ru tucked his hands into his sleeves and nodded, inclining his head like a student to his master. "We chanced upon several of the palace guards tied up in a closet near the kitchens, the trail of similarly bound men leading here. Assuming the worst, we barged in without checking rooms ahead, so I assume we were correct on the intruders' target. With your permission, I will assign some agents to... speak...with the kitchen staff as to any new appointments and divine whether this was a failure to check credentials properly or a long-term plant."

"I can-"

Sheng Tzu's raised hand cut him off. "Unnecessary, but I thank you." The fewer young and impressionable agents who knew their secrets around the Fire Nation, the better. "There is every possibility they managed to merely sneak in. After all, they surprised many of the guards. But where were the Dai Li?"

"In a moment, Sheng Tzu. Would you like to hear from my partner, now that he has had time to assess the room?"

The younger agent blushed pink across his pale skin, and Sheng Tzu internally chuckled. Ah, the freedom of youth to squander second chances.

"There were two, too much damage for just one, or were there three? Two. Both were unarmed - there are no slashed furniture or the tell-tale holes of throwing knives in the walls. They probably weren't intending to kill anyone, especially given the guards tied up and left alive. You surprised them with the baijiu bottle. There's also too few scorch marks for them both to have been firebenders. The non-bender likely destroyed the desk with a misplaced kick, consistent with the skills we know the Fire Nation agents learn. Were they the one who got you with the chair?"

"To be honest, I do not know. The memory of the last moments is a haze, one I hope rest will help starting with tonight's sleep."

Ru bowed, holding it for a beat too long. "Your convalescence may need to wait, at least until you have listened to my next report."

"Yes?"

"Our guests have arrived early."

Sheng Tzu's gaze slid over Ru's shoulder. "Ah. They have."

Cold, gold eyes glinted in the hallway. A sharp tilt of the head accentuated the smirk etched over ice-cold features. A voice oozed superiority, arrogance, intelligence. "Usually, one cleans up before hosting royalty. Is the Earth Kingdom finally learning to rebel against tradition?"

The three Dai Li hit the floor prostrated. Sheng Tzu lifted his head slightly to allow his voice to carry. "It is an honor to host you, Princess Azula. Who could completely prepare for your presence, even without being surprised by a few infiltrators?"

The teenage princes stepped into his office, turning slowly to assess the damage. "You say it was a single firebender, working with a non-bender?"

"Yes, your highness."

She hummed thoughtfully. "Was there hesitation, in the attack?"

"Yes, your highness. But I stepped forward and the fire flew."

A truly frightening smile twisted across her beautiful face. She whirled back to the two Fire Nation guards waiting alone in the hall and clapped her hands together. "Gentlemen, we need to plan yet another celebration. It seems that my brother is alive, and here in the city. We ought to welcome him. Properly."

Ice sluiced down Sheng Tzu's spine as he finally allowed himself to realize who'd been in his office earlier. The princess looked down on him, turning that smile on to his small form, as if she could smell his shock and fear.

"So, Dai Li, how do you feel about avenging yourselves on a dead man?"

* * *

The northern wind whistled around him, and he was home.

There was a whisper of peach fuzz on his chin that, were he not where he was, he might have shaved. It was a new step for him, a new sign of time passing, and a new part of his upkeep to manage every once in a while. Needing to shave a beard - he was growing up, growing out, more and more time stretching between him and the home he'd never return to.

Aang sighed, pulling more air to lift his glider higher above the ocean. He often got lost in his thoughts up here, over the water.

Katara would probably like that, but he wasn't sure he could tell her. He wasn't sure about a lot of things, these days, and his feelings seemed to jump around his chest like a rabbiroo after cactus juice. Last he heard, she was far inland, away from the ocean. Even this icy one. Would it hurt to hear he got to experience the thing she loved? Or not? A little of both?

His thoughts also got all tangled up. It was so much easier to fly away from them, get away, get up, let the miles and miles of distance and air wipe them away.

He was kinda figuring out, though, that his plan, though it was the easy way in the moment, it only made it harder and harder to hang around what was causing the tangled thoughts and emotions with each time he avoided them. He had the sinking feeling that Toph was right, as usual, and that sometimes he needed to think like a rock, be stubborn. Be like fire, and face his problems head on.

Aang sighed again. He was trying. He was out here, wasn't he? Chasing a feeling from deep in his gut, something he was pretty sure was a hint from the Spirit World, that he needed to find someone, meet someone. He just wished that feeling would tell him who. Or where to find them.

Why he always ended up floating over the endless, waiting sea.

The feeling was starting to die again, so he angled himself back towards the Earth Kingdom. He'd figure that problem out, at least. That one he could throw himself at, no question. No confusing feelings, no other people's emotions to worry about - just an endless, clueless search.

He should talk to Toph. She had a way of grabbing a hold of one piece of the inner storm, holding on to it, and making him unspool those thread's knots and drag everything out to the light of day, one thought at a time, where they never were as bad as he'd thought the day before. 

If only they weren't so big on his own.

He'd grab some shore rocks before he met back up with her, though. Up here in the cold there were bound to be some really cool shale ones, all splintery and funky to bend with. It would give her something different from the inland stone they'd been dealing with as they kept the occupation of Ba Sing Se limited to its walls and the surrounding countryside.

Ba Sing Se.

A bell inside him was ringing. Of course. They'd been stockpiling plans to liberate the city, but, and this was just a feeling, but maybe the time was now. Disable a few more supply lines, draw some attention elsewhere, and they could take it. He knew it. And the plan to nab him a teacher out of the Fire Nation's traitor prison could only help!

Bolstered, resolute, Aang set his gaze on the horizon, finally seeing the landscape around him, and asked the wind to speed him back to the last place he'd seen the rebel camp.

He never noticed the small, bright green jungle island beneath him.


	7. ...Plunge into the Fray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience! I've been enjoying the holiday with some family, and hope you got to relax, too.

Zuko woke up shortly after dawn, not much more rested than he'd been when he fell asleep. He'd probably only slept a few hours, to be honest. He paused, took a moment to feel how much it sucked, and then rolled out of bed anyway. He threw some clothes on and hurried back down the hall to the sitting room.

Uncle was sitting there, awake already - or still? - with some papers on the table as well as a faintly steaming pot of probably tea. 

"I agree with Katara."

"I'm sorry, what, Uncle?"

"You need to leave the city."

Zuko plopped down across from him, letting the weight of yesterday and the whole past week drag him down. He grabbed the cup of tea Uncle had set for him, draining the whole cup in one go. "Talk, Uncle."

"Nephew, your sister is coming to the city if not already here. If there is anything kind about the world, you will not meet. After all, she will be a guest of the palace, and you are working as a firefighter."

"It won't go like that."

Uncle nodded. "Agreed. So you must leave, now, before you call down more of the Fire Nation army on Ba Sing Se when all we have planned requires taking the city back." Uncle pushed the papers forward. "I have taken the liberty of preparing you the necessary papers to leave. If you go quickly and quietly, you and Katara can get out of the city by noon and well on your way to meeting up with the Avatar. He will need your help, at least for a time. Plus, it will put you in a position to more freely act, should you chose to do so, in our interests."

"What about my job?"

"Good of you to think of it. I have some soup prepared. I will simply visit Madam Hwan, and the fire chief if he is home, and share how my nephew received some late night visitors, and left with them. It will be understood."

Zuko paused, hand reaching for the documents. "Is this where you become my general, my spymaster, instead of my uncle?"

Uncle smiled, a little sad, a little proud. "I hope to always be your uncle, Zuko, and will always think of you as my nephew first. And, do not forget, a Crown Prince exiled and presumed dead still outranks a general, also presumed dead."

"You have a strange way of- Uncle! Stop meddling!"

"Who's meddling?" Katara asked from the doorway.

Zuko groaned.

* * *

"Pamo and Sekaze Emmir?"

The young couple hesitantly stepped forward. Lin could guess why. Her many years checking the papers of those coming and going from Ba Sing Se gave her a nose for such things. Both refugees, clearly, here from before walls "came down" and likely not contributing much to the city, but hey, that wasn't her paygrade. Nah, it was the everyday riffraff trying to pass through, that was her business.

Per the papers, they barely had a decade in the city between them, which made sense. He was scarred something fierce, like a fist of fire in his face, and boy that had to be half of what had him all puffed up like if he was bigger the problem would go away. As if the guards around couldn't knock him over with a feather. Uneducated commoner. The other half was probably his skittish wife of barely a year. Simple dress on both of them, common green, handmade and mended in a few places, but the girl had skill. And she was keeping back, honorable, not interfering beyond her place. Hmpf. Sometimes the riffraff were better at their customs than some of the idiot youngsters she'd seen running about. 

She looked back and forth between the papers and the couple, noted the slight bump in Sekaze's waistline, nodded internally. "On your way out west are you? Back to the colonies?"

Sekaze leaned forward, hand twitching before she rocked back.

Pamo replied, "Yes, uh, well, ma'am, we've been married a year, now, and we can't get her folks to move closer, and the boss was kind off to give me the leave-"

Lin held up a hand to cut him off. "Yes, yes, you're a good son-in-law, securing the familial visiting traditions even from far away. You're just lucky you didn't get married four years ago. If it wasn't for the recent, uh, change in management, I wouldn't be able to approve such a westward trip. It would've had to go through the palace." Both of them paled, and Lin did take some satisfaction in that. "But, lucky for you, I can now do this."

She stamped her approval on both sets of papers. "Have a good visit." She eyed Sekaze. "Pour out your portion of the anniversary sake for me, will you? I hear Lin is a very popular baby name these days." As they flushed, looking at each other like shy schoolchildren, she tried not to snarl. "Go on, take your papers. And hold hands, for Oma's sake. You still count as newlyweds for a few weeks yet."

Pamo shaped a respectful bow. "We will not forget your kindness." They grabbed each other's hand as if by instinct and hurried towards the ferry with their approved papers.

Nice couple. Very proper. A bright spot to her day, she thought, turning to the next set of riffraff.

* * *

"Your uncle knows very talented people," Katara whispered, practically wrapped around his arm to whisper in Zuko's ear.

"I'm sure he's had my set for a while. Whipping up yours and making some edits probably didn't take long."

She nudged him, gently admonishing. "Let me compliment your family."

Zuko turned slightly, holding her hand onto his arm. Her hand tightened slightly, pulling her a little closer. He smiled and leaned in close to whisper conspiratorially, "you know, Ozai and Azula are technically part of my family, right?"

"Well," she nudged him, playfully, "Ozai did make something good."

* * *

Mai glowered passively as she patrolled the docks, scanning over the faces milling about, waiting for ferries or fishing boats or whatever. She sighed internally, keeping her face blank. It was the one shield she had between her and the world, who didn't care. Didn't give a shit. So it couldn't make her care.

There'd been some infiltration or something, something that Azula had arrived just moments after and probably figured it all out, and now everyone had to scramble around to try and catch up. Most likely, Azula already had the snare laid, and her prey would wander into it no matter what everyone else did. Azula just got to enjoy watching everyone else be less intelligent that her. In this case, she'd scattered her allies like Pai Sho tiles, with Ty Lee inspecting one of the gates. Mai was pretty sure Azula would appear wherever the trap sprung. She was lucky that way. 

Mai's eyes caught on a couple huddled together, chatting about something in a whispered, intimate conversation. He was slightly taller than her, curling gently around her silhouette. They were talking about something serious, but making each other laugh and chuckle throughout.

Jealousy stabbed through her like a hot knife before she could grab hold of her emotions. She turned away, sleeves billowing slightly in the effort.

The Dai Li agent behind her raised an eyebrow questioningly, but accepted the shake of her head. His eyes turned back to the rooftops, and Mai stared at the boardwalk below them as she wrestled with her anger at people who did not know who she was.

It wasn't their fault her boyfriend was dead, or, if alive, completely cut off from any aid, so likely about to die. It wasn't their fault they'd been idiot teens who didn't know anything about relationships when they'd been separated. Not that Mai knew anything now, having been sequestered with her parents since Zuko was banished and then sucked into the wake of Azula's quest to take on the Avatar herself. She'd been traveling since, and she'd seen so much of the world.

Not that she'd liked any of it. Or would admit if she had.

Deciding to face her weakness, she turned back to the couple, who'd pulled slightly apart. Her eyes narrowed as she stared. They weren't standing as close as she'd expect, having watched couples before across the various nations. Their closeness seemed to have been born of the necessity to talk, and now they stood in a comfortable, trusting distance - but not touching. They continued to chat, aimlessly, perhaps, as the ferry started to pull in.

The woman pulled at her clothes, and the slight bulge of her middle did not move like fat. It moved like stuffing, like something tucked to add volume, the slightest disguise to shift eyes away.

"It's them!"

Maybe she yelled it. Maybe the Dai Li did. The end result was the same - the couple bolted, and they sprung into pursuit.

Her knives were flying before she'd even really decided to, finding the moments by where misses led to knives clattering off walls and not into innocent flesh. This, this was the kind of moment she'd admit to liking - heart thumping but she was good at this sort of thing. She was following Azula's directions, and she'd succeed. It didn't matter how well-trained the spies ahead of them were, leaping out of the way of both her knives and the attacks from the Dai Li. Azula had all the luck, the skill, and she attracted those gifted almost as much as her. That tended to tip the scales.

So when, breaking out of the crowds at the dock to a more open space - one closer to freedom though she, who'd just arrived late the night before, couldn't have known that - Mai threw one of her lighter knives, deliberately ricocheting it off the ground not to maim but merely distract for the second knife she had waiting to fly, she expected a stumble or start.

She did not expect the man to turn on his heel like he'd heard the knife hitting the ground and knew what would follow. He spun through his turn, hand slightly shimmering as he bat the knife away, and spun back to keep running with his partner.

Mai hesitated. 

She hurled another knife straight at center mass.

His partner slowed, turning to face them, as if she'd sensed the tides shifting from flight to fight. Mai recognized her, and the waterskin that had slipped out from its hiding place as body fat amongst the water-witch's clothing. And as the next knife was leaving one hand, Mai threw up her other hand to command the Dai Li to stop, to wait on her signal and watch.

Zuko turned without effort and hit away yet another knife, stopping this time when he faced her.

Everything froze, it felt like.

Zuko smiled, weary and it didn't reach his eyes. If he didn't have his hands up, ready to throw fire, he would probably have one hand behind his neck; Mai was certain. "So, how have you been?"

"You're dead. Azula told me you were dead."

"Azula always lies."

"Three years! And you're closer than ever to making her lies truth. You barely wrote to me at all before to decided to die or, I guess, fall in with the Avatar's little band. What are you thinking? You're betraying us?!"

He looked at her, really saw her, saw the inches she'd gained in height and the angles sharpened where baby fat had left her face. "You know, Mai, I could swear that's almost the most emotion you've ever shown all at once since you befriended Azula." A knife whistled harmlessly past his ear, but he didn't flinch. "I couldn't do it anymore, Mai. My father will never love me-" It was her turn to repress a flinch as the Dai Li audibly sucked in breath. "-and I know that. I've accepted it. I will not accept what he's done. You know this is not what's best for our nation. You know it."

"I know you're speaking treason," she snapped back. "Once Azula's confirmed as heir, you'll have worked against line of Sozin, Zuko. Nothing can bring you back from that."

"She hasn't been confirmed?" Zuko's gaze was razor focused, and Mai cursed her slip up, deliberately relaxing her shoulders to hide it.

"The Fire Sages wouldn't do it. Said there was some obstacle. I guess we should've known it was you."

"Yes," purred a voice stepping onto the docks. "My brother does have a way with obstacles, doesn't he? Too stubborn to lay down and die like a loyal citizen of the Fire Lord. Have you been hiding here, working secretly all this time? Or did you unluckily roll in recently with the Avatar's pet waterbender?"

Katara's - ah, yes, Mai did remember her now - focus snapped to the new - biggest - threat. "I know your dad would betray you in a heartbeat, too, if you disappointed him. So where does that leave us, on the sliding scale of embarrassment?"

"Oh please, like a peasant could understand the complicated machinations of an imperial throne."

"Perhaps not, but I do know family. Your father, the younger child, never confirmed as heir still took the throne? And yet you are not confirmed heir despite years of your brother being assumed dead. Whether the Fire Sages complained or not, you know your father could bend them to his will - if he cared."

Azula's eyes narrowed. "I see, trying to get under my skin. Well, let me tell you what no one else got to hear because my grandfather died before his order could be carried out, so it didn't matter anymore and my father was Fire Lord." Azula smirked, because Zuko tensed like a man at with a whole army aiming at him. Mai looked to her princess in dawning horror. "See, my father struck a deal with Fire Lord Azulon when Lu Ten died. My father would be heir to throne, as long as he killed Zuko."

 _No,_ whispered Mai's suddenly aching heart. _Azula always lies-_

The princess stabbed two fingers forward, lightning flying towards Zuko's heart.

_-unless the truth is worse._

Waves rose up from the docks, stabbing through gaps in the planks as a wall of ice that shattered upon the lightning's strike. But the wall had done its job - for when it exploded apart, another wave was subsiding into the sea, and Katara and Zuko were gone.

"Find them," Azula ordered, a single strand of hair out of place but otherwise unruffled. She looked at Mai. "Did you enjoy reuniting with your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend," Mai replied, emotionless as ever with them all locked back down dark and deep inside her heart where they could not be used against her. With a bow to her princess, she took off down the docks, following the Dai Li, for what else could she do?


	8. Onwards and Upwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some recognizable dialogue lifted from canon - it obviously does not belong to me; in this chapter only Tai does.

They broke the surface outside of Ba Sing Se's walls and gasped for breath. Katara's hand was tight around his, an anchor pulling him further up and further on. Zuko took another deep breath, like a pearl diver, tasting crisp autumn air in the air in a way impossible when packed inside the world's largest city, and followed the slight tug of her hand back down under the surface.

He kicked, out of habit, but he knew it was bending that was carrying them on, away from the city. Zuko wondered if he'd recognize any of the countryside, having made the reverse trip by ferry three years ago.

In this moment, it seemed like it had been much longer.

Katara pulled him up again, breaching the surface to suck in more air. She gestured towards shore. In sync, they swam towards the shore, its sandy side and tree line only a little ways back from the edge of the water. Breathing slightly heavily, they crawled up to the grass, to the shade, and fell over, dropping their small packs at their sides. Zuko deliberately tried to exhale the coiling stress of escape and emotional fights. Whether it worked or not, he was never quite sure, but at least he tried.

Sopping wet, he rolled onto his hands and knees, rocking back onto his heels before standing up. He offered a hand to Katara, which she accepted. On her feet, Katara twisted her hands, drawing the water from both of their clothes.

"There. Ought to help."

"Well," Zuko began. "River-water-soaked-clothes wouldn't be nearly as a big a problem dried to your skin as clothes soaked in the ocean."

"Salt?"

"Salt."

Katara nodded, and then leaned forward. "How do you know about that?"

"Did you ever think about how much the Fire Nation relies on the ocean? How we, made of islands, have to know just as much as you?"

"Oh."

"Plus, there's the not insignificant question of how I escaped the siege of the North Pole."

She side-eyed him, tentative amusement overridden with genuine concern. "How did you escape? I'm guessing the Northern Water Tribe didn't help, and the Fire Navy couldn't-" she trailed off, eyes growing wide. "And we forgot about you, with Koizilla, and- Zuko I am so-"

"Stop. You already apologized for everything on the roof, remember?"

"But your uncle saved the Moon, and we left him to die without thinking!"

"Don't take all the responsibility on yourself. You were dealing with Aang, and we were still the Fire Nation guys who'd chased you halfway around the world. We found a raft, found the current heading south, and we could cook our fish. We lived. I won't do it again, but we lived."

Zuko smiled and gestured towards the trees. "Shall we figure out where we are, where to go, and make camp?"

She nodded, and Katara followed him deeper into the shade.

***

Tai fiddled nervously with his empty cup. He was seated across from a retired Fire Nation General, member of the royal family, and apparently a leader of the resistance against his home such that the Avatar's waterbending teacher trusted him.

Tai was so out of his depth.

But how could he have turned down the invitation to tea? He'd brought it on himself, bringing the general some tea and dried foods once he'd heard the news from Hwan. Tai was pretty sure there was something else, something deeper, going on, but in times of confusion manners were what one could rely on, especially when you jumped head-first into political machinations and now didn't know where to go. Plus, Tai frequented the shop over the years, visiting his friends. It would be a slight, something out of place to draw the Dai Li's eye, if he didn't bring a condolence gift.

The general did seem to like the tea, which was a huge relief.

"So, Tai, I imagine your chief shared the story I told?"

"Yes, Mushi. I mean, um-"

"I have lived as Mushi for three years now. I would be lying if I said the identity of friendly tea merchant wasn't a comfort. You may continue to call me Mushi, since, after all, you are used to that name, and I am, too."

Tai gulped.

"Did you only come to bring me a proper gift and share some tea, or was there another reason?"

"Yes, um, Mushi, sir. I want to know the truth."

The older man's eyes clouded with some dark emotion, but he calmly set his tea down and seemed to bear to malice towards Tai. "Tell me, did my nephew ever hint at the origin of his scar? I thought not. It was dealt by his father, the Fire Lord we fight. I see you look of horror - yes, it is a terrible act I know my people decry in secret to this day. So to know his sister, the lucky and favored child, was returning to Ba Sing Se, well, I simply got him and a few others out who could not afford to run into the princess."

"But sir," Tai began, as the old man sipped tea through a wry grin. "Sir, you're still here."

"I am, aren't I." Carefully, as if he has all the time in the world, he pours himself and Tai more tea before settling back. "Tai, a general can only lead from so far back. There is danger to that, of course, but one must trust they've trained their successors well should the worst happen. That they'll know how to spend their resources well, direct even the most unassuming operatives who fall into your lap."

He could be proud of himself for setting his cup down without a sound, couldn't he? You could be proud of small things when the ground shifted beneath you, the avalanche of your life turning. "What do you need me to do, General?"

"You can stop fires; this I know. What do you know about starting one?"

A thousand horrified replies leapt to his mind, but he only coughed out, "Enough."

***

"Why are we in the trees," Katara hissed, still tying herself to a branch as he'd instructed.

Zuko pulled his own tie taunt before replying, "it's still warm, so we don't need a fire. Up here we're less likely to be tripped over by wild animals looking for a snack, or roving bandits. Hardly anybody ever thinks to look up."

"You're sure of that?"

He shook his head ruefully, settling in on the branch as comfortably as possible. "You're forgetting, I grew up with Fire Nation tactics and strategy. I'm pretty much the only person who studied to fight airbenders, who have all tactical angles available to them. It's amazing what you can forget after a hundred years of not having individual fighters who can fly."

"You learned that, chasing Aang?"

"Even before. I thought- we all thought we'd find an ancient man who'd been training for years, or a waterbending prodigy, not a young boy-"

"Your father sent you up against what he thought was a learned master of multiple elements?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

Katara practically exploded. "That's insane! How could he do that? He asked you to die!"

Zuko held onto his temper with both hands, barely, bark digging into his palms. "Oh really? What do you even know about that? You've been wandering for years, you haven't been on the ground, there, day in and day out, watching the spirit of a people be leeched away bit by bit. And it's not the first time - no, you watched it at home, as a kid, when childhood should have been idyllic but your great-grandfather dragged everyone into a war, and slowly the expectations grow as your sister goes mad and then your mom-"

He broke off, sudden, the words that had poured from his lips like oil from a knocked over lamp. "You have no idea what this war has put me through. Even me, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. This war took my mother away from me."

"I'm sorry," Katara tried, her voice stepped into the silence as she touched her necklace gently. "That's something we have in common."

Zuko hesitated. "I'm sorry, too. Mine vanished in the dead of night to save my life. If you want to talk about it..."

"She stood between me and a Fire Nation officer and claimed to be the waterbender they were looking for."

"Oh, I am so sorry, Katara. We can break into some record buildings - I think I know the ones we need - and we'll find which complex she was taken to based on when the kidnapping raid was, and I'm sure Aang will back us up on an assault to break her out-"

"Zuko, no."

"What? We can-"

Katara's hand clenched around the pendant. "No, Zuko, we can't. The Fire Nation didn't come to take prisoners."

"But-"

"Not that time. He cut her throat right in front of me and fled before my father could return and take proper vengeance. So I'm sorry, but we can't go on your break-in quest to save my mom. She's never coming back."

The silence of the growing dark and resurrected pain grasped down, closing in like a vise. Katara, hand relaxing and falling back into her lap, sighed after a few minutes. "I shouldn't have snapped like that. Somehow, in the dark, not quite looking at you, it was easier to yell. Let it all out. And just, imagine how much I've been through the past few days. We all thought you were dead, and then surprise - there you are in the middle of a fire helping people. It's just - for so long now, before this week, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face. And you were dead, but now you're alive. And helping."

"My face?" Zuko's hand drifted to his scar. "I see."

"Not like that, Zuko. Not like that."

"It's okay. I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But in Ba Sing Se, I was just another scarred refugee, and on a firefighter even the strangest of burn scars make sense. I fit for a time, like a forced puzzle piece but I fit. It, it helped me realize I was free to determine my own destiny. It gave me the courage to get you out. And maybe I haven't been making big flashy moves like you, but I've been doing something ever since."

"I'm glad." In the growing shadows that masked her face, he could still make out a rueful smile to match his earlier one. "I'm glad I'm stuck with you and that you're not dead. In the morning, if you want, I can try to see if there's anything I can heal? I won't be able to remove the scar, no one can, but I've gotten more of a chance to learn from Yugoda. If there's anything still hurting, I can help."

"It's five years old."

"I don't have to if you don't want to. I know we have a lot of ground to cover, so I thought I'd ask. A peace offering, if you will."

Zuko hummed thoughtfully. "I accept, doubtfully. No offense."

"None taken. Sleep well, Zuko."

"You, too, Katara."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience!


	9. Sidesteps and Dodging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!

Sheng Tzu stood still, perfectly positioned within Azula's peripheral vision. No knives were drawn; no bending flew, but he felt naked with a whole army shooting at him as he waited in the map room in silence wearing only his Dai Li robes. Being around the princess, her mood sharp as viper, was dancing with danger. Rumors traveled far when you were the head of an intelligence agency.

Even if there were no rumors of her actions beyond Ba Sing Se, she'd taken his city at fourteen. Held it, now, at seventeen.

He sank his chi into the floor, spreading out his awareness through the room as quietly as possible to help his eyes before he spoke. He'd read once that the badgermoles saw through their earthbending (and heard rumors the Avatar's earthbending master did the same) - and maybe, were he in a spirit-tale, that would come to him in a time of need - but the tiny reshuffling of feet - invisible to the eye if not looking for it - that he could feel. Could assess.

"The most interesting rumor about the royal family floated up from the docks this morning, Princess."

Azula, leaning over the map of Ba Sing Se, briefly looked up from her assessment. Her gaze flicked in quick succession to his second, to her compatriot leaning against the wall -

There! There was the subtle shift in her lean from _bored_ to _faking bored_. There was something real to this rumor.

-to him. She regarded him the longest, looking out the corner of her eye as a predator does when poked by a small creature it was deciding whether or not to effortlessly crush out of mere annoyance and arrogance.

She turned back to the map, and he continued to breathe deep and even without any stutter or hesitation. He let a minute pass in silence as she moved a few tokens around the map without consulting any of the other Dai Li or Fire Nation agents gathered in the room.

"Perhaps the Princess would like to illuminate us as to the cultural differences that allow a man to strike his son without consequence?"

The gloomy agent stiffened further against the wall, but Sheng Tzu kept his gaze on the princess as she straightened and turned her golden eyes back to him. He could feel it then, a chasm open up beneath him, so close, so warm, the raging inferno of her. It was - it was appealing, almost sad, the call to him to be Earth, to sigh and to slip into place like a good little cobblestone. Fall in line, and bring the others with you. Stop resisting, stop questioning, fall into duty, fall into obedience. Follow her. 

As he sank his chi deeper into the palace floor, deeper into the memory of his king in exile, the pull was easier to resist and he remained standing.

She tilted her head to the side, a smirk curling her mouth.

Then it was gone, brightness etched into every feature as if she hadn't a care in the world, was a storybook princess not the apex predator of the city. "Why, dear Dai Li, surely you out of all of us understand the importance of a few well-placed words to psychologically undermine your opponent in a fight."

It wasn't a lie - the exiled prince's words had spread, too - but it wasn't honesty either. She neatly stepped around the question with just enough of a reply that any listener could easily choose to be satisfied.

He was not, but let it slide with a respectful nod. "Of course, Princess."

"Now that we've cleared that up, I want to draw your attention to something." She spun back to the map, one manicured nail pointing to Fire Nation barracks on the opposite side of the city from the docks. "Why was there a fire here yesterday morning?"

The second-in-command of the Dai Li replied, "The report brought to me implicated a komodo-rhino who kicked over a lit lamp and then panicked."

The princess hummed thoughtfully. "Convenient that it drew eyes to that side of the city when the infiltrators made their escape. We were split in half."

"You believe there are more infiltrators in Ba Sing Se?"

She was not half as threatening towards his second. "Of course. There were two who attacked your leader, at least. There was no evidence it was the Avatar's water-witch with my brother, but we can't rule her out completely. Still, someone had to help her get into the city without notice and had to have made plans to get her back out quietly. If Mai and the Dai Li had not been there, it might have worked." She gave an approving nod to her compatriot, who shrugged. "For the time being, I will be accepting theories, but I want to work as though she came in to get my brother out. We will think about those implications later."

Azula grabbed a small stack of paper off the table. "No men above the age of fifty were trying to leave yesterday or today. Where my brother is, my uncle is there or a few steps behind. I want him - or his grave - found. Today. Comb the city, beginning with the Middle Ring. You are dismissed."

As the Dai Li began to leave, the princess called out one more time, "Oh, Sheng Tzu?"

He turned and gave a small, respectful bow. "Yes, Princess Azula?"

"As the leader of the Dai Li, you do not work with me. You work for me, the ruler of this city. You would do well to remember that."

Sheng Tzu bowed again, a little lower, and held it as he replied, staring at the ground, "My loyalty is and has always been to Ba Sing Se, her people, and her rightful ruler. I could no more forget that than I could forget to breathe."

_Two can play this game, princess._

Her eyes were narrowed thoughtfully as he rose. With her dismissive nod, he left, breathing even as always.

* * *

Tai shivered, curled up in his bunk at the fire station.

Mushi - the general - the Fire Nation noble! - had told him to lean into it. Ba Sing Se was a city of fear; it choked on it, strangled by paranoia. As such, it roused suspicions of innocent actions and let true subterfuge slip idly by. To lose a friend in the night when the Dai Li had been seen following him? Who would not shudder in fear when thoughts surrounded him?

Tai blinked and there was Shen Wei, leaning slightly on the top bunk so he could rest a sympathetic hand on Tai's shoulder.

"Hey. I know it sucks to lose your partner, especially a long-term one you're friends with, but this is Ba Sing Se. Everyone knows of at least one person who got disappeared. They sometimes come back. A little different, but they come back."

"He saved my life, Wei. I owe him so much, and I can't do anything for him. I shouldn't want to do anything, anyway. Not as a proper citizen."

He trailed off as Wei crouched to eye level, looking around as he did so. "Do you want to be a proper citizen? Or a good one? When the Earth King returns, and he asks you, what wi-"

Tai flung himself into a seated position, wrapping one arm around his coworker's head so he could more efficiently press his other hand to Wei's mouth. "You should not speak out loud about that rumor. Not even here."

He let go, and Wei slowly rocked back on his heels, hand leaving Tai's shoulder. "You're talking like this a rumor actually discussed, not something that might be said to console. I think we need to talk more, somewhere else." He offered his hand.

Tai took it. "I think so, too."

* * *

"Zuko?"

"Yeah?"

"Sleeping in a tree sucks." He huffed in laughter, and she stuck her tongue out at him as she hefted her pack over one shoulder. "Thanks for enjoying my suffering. I'll make sure to remember that next time I have to break you out of a bad situation."

Zuko shook the hair from his eyes as he stood, the rope they'd secured themselves with coiled on the outside of his pack. The paired dao she remembered were secured as well for an easy draw. "Hey, I didn't ask for any help. What made you sneak into Ba Sing Se anyway? Surely your leadership doesn't actually send you chasing after rumors without backing them up." He gestured for her to follow, and she did without comment. Zuko continued, "I know you guys, uh, trust the Blue Spirit, but like Uncle said, I don't think that kind of intel is his specialty."

"His? It could be a woman."

"It's not."

"But it could be!"

"Katara, I grew up with Azula, Ty Lee, and _Mai_. Any number of highly capable agents could be women - I don't have an exact count - and they're probably all properly terrifying. But the Blue Spirit is in Uncle's network. He'd know, and so in this one case, so do I."

She rolled her eyes, though since he was leading he couldn't see. "I guess that makes sense. Are you going to find us a road, spymaster?"

"We don't have usable papers; the ones we used to get out will be flagged by now if they have any sense, and Azula does. She'll have riders on the roads from Ba Sing Se looking for both us and our aliases. We'll follow this river from within the tree line - she'll likely have sent boats looking as well; she knows you - until we've passed another settlement. Then with our map we can workshop some names and a new story together since we won't need papers to be illiterate peasants traveling from one town to another."

"It does concern me a little how you're good at this," she replied softly.

Zuko, still walking forward, turned his head back to focus on her. "Uncle and I really didn't want to die."

He turned back around, and abruptly stopped. Katara crashed into him, and was momentarily impressed that she barely budged him at all. His left arm, thrown out to the side, curled around her with the gentle suggestion she stay half hidden behind his form. Her hand wrapped around his bicep on instinct, the other fisted around the shirt over his shoulder-blades, and she might have hummed in appreciation had she not been processing the sight before her and their options.

Three men, unshaven in roughly mended clothes were staring back at them, what looked like remains of a lunch scattered in the middle of their loose circle. One was hunched over a simple sword, sharpening it. Another had his shirt half-pulled on, his gaze flicking between them and the bow and quiver at his feet.

The third was busy cleaning blood off his sword in the river.

"Well, boys," began the third man, starting to stand, sword still in his hand. "Looks like we found dessert."

"I am not-" The indignant response bubbled over without thinking, cut off only by the soft pressure of his heel on her toes.

"We're just passing through," Zuko replied, steady. "There's no need for this."

"Oh yeah?" sneered the archer. "And what are you going to do about it?"

As the archer bent down to his weapons, Zuko moved. A jut of his elbow and Katara fell back into the underbrush. She rolled onto her side, angry at stupid heroic idiots, and froze. The dao were separate, in his hands, and her heart swelled with something like awe to see his skill as he struck the arrow from the air with the flat side of the blade. She started to move herself, instinctively reaching her chi out for the river, when in a deliberate turning step one of his blades effortlessly caught the downswing of the assumed leader and the other blade caught the throat of the archer. Zuko stepped through the slice and over the body. He faced the leader and the other swordsman, and Zuko spun the dao in his hands with grim determination.

The two bandits leapt forward, and her heart leapt into her throat. Shaking herself, Katara scrambled to her feet, uncorking her water-skein, as both the second swordsman and one of Zuko's blades fell into the sand, blood trickling from his dangling arm.

The leader laughed. "You idiot. I'm in between you and your girl, and you've only got one arm left."

Zuko smirked as his gaze flicked to meet hers and then back to the leader, left dao still held in a confident block as he stood, waiting. "I think you're the idiot. I've never been safer."

Katara took an intentionally audible sound forward. The leader turned and met her eyes as she filled his chest full of ice spikes. He sank to a knee, and she flicked her wrist once more to send one last spike through his throat.

She melted the spikes as she walked forward, the deadly water seeping into the earth as if it was never there. She sighed, calling fresh water from the river to fill her skein. "Such a waste. Zuko!"

"I'm fine."

"You're not!" He had fallen to a knee, too, both dao on the ground now as he clutched at his right arm, and she knelt beside him. "I can see the blood seeping through your fingers already. Why you and my brother are like this, I'll never know." She called more of the river to her hands as he sank down further. "Let me see."

"We should go."

"We will move faster if you just-" She took her revenge, smacking him under the jaw with her elbow. He tumbled back, losing his grip on his arm. Flat on his back, he was at her mercy as she set her knee on his chest and placed her glowing hands, covered with soothing water, on the deep gash in his arm. "He got you good."

"You got him better."

Katara chuckled, willing flesh to knit together, to listen to her pull like his blood listened to her push and obediently stayed where it belonged - inside him and uncontaminated. Satisfied with her work, and that it would not scar, she stood, allowing him to stand as well. He was a little unsteady but kept his balance on his own. She crossed through the small battlefield to pick up the stuff he'd dropped in his initial attack. When she walked back, he met her, fitting his pack around the bow and quiver he'd grabbed.

"Do you know how to use a sword?"

"Not even a little."

"Then we'll leave theirs. But I'm teaching you to use this. If we have to use our bending, and we want to move unnoticed, we cannot leave anyone alive to tell who we are."

Katara nodded, determined, carefully watching his first few steps as he started to move on. "You have to trust me next time, you know. You can't do all this on your own, and I think waterbending isn't as obvious as you think. Not here. I can and will have your back next time."

"You think there's gonna be a next time?" He sounded resigned, like he already knew the answer.

"With you, Zuko, there's always a next time."


	10. Blazing Forward

He muttered curses into her shoulder.

The benefit of spending three years doing more and more covert missions had taught Katara a lot, including teaching her that there were a lot of things she still didn't know. She knew from her father that, when at sea a long time, a ship's crew would come back with pretty much their own language just from being isolated away from others while still being people who made jokes. Zuko and his uncle had been on that ship together for - well, actually she didn't know but probably years from his bad manners. And then cast adrift after the North Pole invasion and isolated for years in Ba Sing Se? They had to have their own code.

So she understood each word individually that Zuko was whispering into her shoulder seam as she carried him along, but not all together in sequence as he was using. But if General Iroh were here to translate, she was sure she'd be bright red.

Or maybe not. It's not like she or Sokka hid their vocabulary from their dad anymore. Not when he'd taught them inadvertently over the last few years of just trying to keep their little resistance afloat in this unexpected grace period from the power of the comet.

Zuko's foot caught on a rock, and Katara had to stop while he regained his balance. The furrow that had been growing on her forehead deepened as he struggled to get his feet back under him, even with her right arm around his waist and her left keeping his arm secure over her shoulders. They had to stop; she could not keep this up much longer carrying their supplies and most of Zuko's weight. But three nights ago had proven they needed the trees - or some shelter - and she wasn't sure she could get him into a tree again and keep him there without severely handicapping herself.

Indulging in a few quiet curses, Katara readjusted her grip and kept the two of them walking. A small settlement had been marked on the map when she plotted over lunch. A couple villages and a few days in between them and Ba Sing Se ought to help hold a cover story overnight. At least with dusk settling in, it would hopefully make any lights windows stand out more.

She felt Zuko slump a little more, a little more weight on her shoulders, a little more sluggishness in his steps.

"Oh no you don't. You got yourself into this mess. I gotta get you out of this so I can yell at you without feeling guilty." She pulled him up a little, maybe a little too harsh but there wasn't any resistance. "You hear that Agni? I need to smack some sense into your boy, and as an ally of your sister I think I ought to get some help."

It might have been her imagination, but it seemed the setting sun shone a little brighter.

As the sun finally slipped behind the horizon, and Katara kept walking resolutely forward, blinking lights as if through a window winked through trees. The forest had grown sparser, she noted, as had the brush potentially underfoot.

"Thank you, Lord Agni."

And thank the spirits there was no porch to the first house she approached. A barn stood back a bit from the house and the road that ran past it. Farther down, more homesteads lit up their small corner of the world, a promise that they had more chances if this first one didn't work out.

Brown traveling clothes made dusty by days walking, Katara rapped on the door and hoped for the best.

A simple, stocky Earth Kingdom man opened the door. Katara could see behind him a woman, presumably his wife, and a sparsely decorated home as befitting farmers eking out a living during war.

"Good evening sir. Could I trouble you for some shelter?"

"We don't want any trouble."

He moved to close the door, but Katara slipped her foot forward, into his way, Zuko swaying with the shift in support. "Please, sir. We were beset by a bandit and got lucky, but we're all turned around. We just need a roof, a place for me to lay him down for the night, and we'll be gone before lunch. We still have some food of our own, and I'll even help your wife in the morning in thanks. Please."

"There ought to be a couple of piles of hay in the barn. If anyone comes asking after you, we never spoke."

She retracted her foot. "Of course not. Shouldn't be a problem in any case. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you." She readjusted her grip on Zuko and started for the barn.

There was indeed a pile of hay right inside the barn door. Closing the door behind her, Katara took the time to arrange the now definitely feverish Zuko on their packs as well, ostensibly to act as support pillows to ease the slope of the hay, but more out of her desire to hide the dao in case the farmer decided to investigate. She flopped down at his feet to gnaw at some jerky.

She was going to strangle Zuko when he was back to his normal self.

Mulling over pleasant thoughts of revenge was cut short as the barn door slowly nudged open. Katara scrambled to her feet as the farmer's wife slipped inside, a tray in her hands with two pots and two cups clinking softly.

"I would have steeped the tea, but I was unsure if you needed hot water or not."

The question hung unspoken between them for a moment. "No, thank Oma and Shu." Katara knelt back down next to Zuko, and the woman set the tray on the floor within reach and sat down herself. "He was fine, if a little run down this morning. And then, just before lunch, he started stumbling and talking nonsense, which is when I learned he'd barely been eating the two days after we were attacked."

An unbidden noise of frustration clawed its way out of her throat as the woman nodded sympathetically, pouring the hot water into the pot with the tea leaves. "My husband can be the same way. I am glad we haven't had such lean years in a while now. I'm Lin Dee, by the way. How long have you two been married?"

"Fa Mai. And almost a couple years now. You?"

"Oh, a couple decades. Our children are grown up now - daughter married the young man a few miles down the road and our sons are fighting for the Earth King." Dee set the empty water pot down. "You look a bit young to be married that long. Is your husband a deserter?"

Katara held onto just enough of her temper to keep the tea from exploding out of the pot. "Lee would never be so dishonorable!" With a silent apology, she flung a hand to gesture at Zuko's face. "Do you think if his vision wasn't compromised he wouldn't be doing everything he could for the Earth King? We did all we could until raids drove us from home, and if we hadn't gotten attacked and then lost, we would've found our way back to his folks and gotten right back to helping!"

Dee lifted her hands in surrender. "I see this is a sore point for you. My apologies for bringing up old wounds."

Katara tched as she looked sharply down. She paused, trying to figure out where to take this pile of lies next in the ~~trap~~ web she'd woven around herself. "He protected me when no one else in the village would. He fought a bandit to defend me." She lifted her eyes. "I have to defend him how I can."

It wasn't entirely false. There hadn't been anyone else to protect her at the time, and he certainly had fought at least one bandit for her.

_"Pull back without your elbow imitating a bird's wing. Good. Okay, that looks dramatic but keep the string from you cheek so it doesn't-"_

_"Ow!"_

_"I didn't mean let go!"_

_The arrow stuck harmlessly in the ground at the base of tree they'd decided was the target for the afternoon's archery lesson. They'd made good time the day before and that morning, so he'd declared it time to pause and practice with the bow for a bit. Given her accuracy with ice, Zuko was mostly concerned with her education in the_ how _of a bow. Once Katara knew how the physics worked, he had absolute confidence in her ability to make it absolutely deadly. She'd subtly preened when he'd said that to her, and he had grinned despite the seriousness of the situation._

_He handed her another arrow. "Try again."_

_Katara accepted the arrow without turning from the target, keeping her good stance, and nocked the arrow._

_Zuko heard a rustling behind them as he watched her eyes widen, pulling the bow up and aiming to the side of the target. He spun around, putting his back to hers as more bandits emerged from the trees surrounding them. One met Zuko's eyes, smiling with sick glee._

_"So. You're the ones who killed our brothers and stole Raj's bow." He reached down, grabbing up some of the rations from their open pack. Spilling them out on the ground, he smirked at Zuko. "Guess it's a good thing you two won't be needing these."_

_"Lee?" Katara questioned in a small voice, pressing her spine to his as he fumbled at her hip._

_With a 'pop,' he uncorked her water skein. "Kill them all."_

"You two are more lost than you're letting on."

"Excuse me?"

Dee poured the tea for both of them instead of immediately responding. She picked up a cup and took a long sip. "You're not Earth Kingdom, something my husband is pretending not to know. I pay attention where he refuses to, and keep the secrets he'd combust if he knew. You are from beyond our borders, and if no one is looking for you it's because they don't know the right names to ask." She leveled a look at Katara. "Is the Avatar alive?"

Katara recoiled in shock, unable to hide from that look or question. "I- uh, yes. He is. He's fifteen now, and learning more every day."

"Fifteen? He was twelve when Ba Sing Se fell? Spirits, it's worse than I thought if that's who the spirits had to choose to save us." Dee rose, tea in hand. "I will leave you and your husband in peace until the morning. I hope you know how to bake a loaf of bread." She chuckled as she slipped partway out of the door. "No military man will believe me about this. The Fire Nation might have, when they first landed. But they've been here so long, I think they'd forget to ask me just like the Earth Kingdom soldiers would."

The door clicked shut behind her, the discomfort in Katara's soul and the steaming pot of tea the only sign Dee had been there.

"It was a good story."

Katara spit out her tea in surprise. "How much did you hear?" she asked, leaning forward to refill her cup.

"Can't be sure. Are we the ones with kids?"

"Only if we also say they're dead."

"Too sad." Zuko rolled onto his side, away from her. "I'd have protected my kids."

"I know. You aren't mad at me for using your scar?"

He didn't reply, and after a couple minutes of drinking tea in silence she leaned over to listen to his measured breathing. She placed the back of her hand to his forehead, frowning a little in concern. He was cooler than he had been, but she was still worried.

She pulled the map out from under his thigh. After a little study - that she really wished she had his help for - she figured they were about two more days from an established rendezvous point. Hopefully, it was still in place or would have clues to a new one nearby. She tucked the map back, a little deeper into the pack, and then - tea finished - curled up with her back to Zuko's. He was very warm, and she hoped it was just his normal temperature. He needed to sleep, and he needed to eat.

 _Self-sacrificial, idiotic-_ her own internal monologue cut off again in a frustrated noise. He'd put himself in charge of meals after their narrow escape with their belongings, so she'd had no chance to notice how he'd not been eating enough to make up for the lost rations. He'd probably been staying awake too long, too, pushing himself too far on too little. Oh, giving him a good tongue thrashing was going to be very satisfying once she was completely sure he was back to normal.

Those and similar thoughts swirling in her mind, Katara fell asleep.

* * *

_His dreams were full of fire._

And screaming, can't forget the screaming. At least this time it wasn't his. No, the forest was dry as bone, as if an angry, powerful bender had sucked the life from their branches to wield as her own weapon, making his that more dangerous.

And she was screaming.

_This isn't how it went. This isn't how it went._

_"Silly Zuzu. You know you're not even safe in your dreams."_

_Breathe. In. Out. In._ Out.

He was dreaming, for he'd never be so foolish as to light a _crown fire_ in a land already ravaged by two armies. And Katara, despite whatever trick she'd pulled to grab more water, had not left a dead forest in her wake. She'd struck a bandit in the thigh and hurled the bow at another before the first bandits could close on them, when they'd learned what a terrible idea it was to try and fistfight a firebender who wasn't going to hold back.

Azula hadn't been there. They're been no screaming. No screaming. _No screa-_

_"Zuko!"_

It was a dream, but he tensed, bolted on instinct. He make them pay, make them pay, get her safe, get her _safe_ -

Something solid and warm about his ribs pulled him short, and he shook himself, blinking. He took in the hay, the wooden barn around him, the signs of rosy dawn poking her fingers through the bottom-most slats of the wall. He could feel the centering anchor that told him it was the sun, dawn was truly rising, and he was awake.

He shifted, and that solid weight around his ribs tightened. A warm huff of breath blossomed briefly through his shirt in the space between his shoulder-blades, so clear a face had to be pressed right up to him. He laid his arm atop the one around his middle that had pulled him back to wakefulness. Carefully, he twisted over, dislodging the arm yes, but causing the first signs of waking up to flitter across Katara's face as she no doubt tried to stay asleep.

Softly, he reached out and brushed the few strands of hair out of her mouth, grazing her cheek, and he chuckled as she immediately smacked her lips a little in confusion before her eyes opened just enough to squint at him through the first rays of the day.

 _Oh._ Had he ever noticed how blue her eyes were?

She frowned, and then punched him in the shoulder. "Don't you dare do that again."

"What?"

"We can go hunting. I can fish better than anyone, whether or not Sokka says its cheating. You are not allowed to starve yourself. I need you, you big idiot."

"Oh. Um, sorry. Losing those rations was kind of my fault and-"

"Apology accepted, and no it was not." Katara sat up, hay trailing in her wake as it fluttered out of her hair and off her tunic as she then stood and ran through a couple quick stretches, brushing off what hay she could. He sat up, too, and just stared, so he was ready when she turned back to him. "You are going to stay right there and rest. Sleep if you can. I am going to do the chores I promised, so we can get out of here before lunch, like I also promised. There should be a rendezvous point two days away. Are you up for that?"

Zuko nodded, and she smiled.

"Good. I'm glad you're alive, Zuko. Please don't make me worry like that again."

Katara vanished out of the barn, and he sank back into the hay pile.

He was screwed. At least pulling off pretending to be a married couple was going to be easier, if not also torture.

* * *

Aang landed, a grin on his face to see Toph and Sokka waiting. "Hey guys! What's new? I had the greatest idea while I was flying-"

"Hold onto that, Aang. We need to tell you what's going on, before you talk."

Aang paused, looking at Sokka with _serious_ written into every line as if he was actually Hakoda and the chief in that moment. And Toph hadn't even made fun of him yet! Something was up. He'd been right to come here.

_Though there was still that call, now to the west..._

"You guys know you can tell me anything."

Sokka sighed, looking to Toph and back. "Katara snuck into Ba Sing Se. The Grand Lotus was there, and she wanted to get confirmation of the rumor we'd all heard, that the Earth King was going to make a move. The last message the Lotus got out? Katara was breaking out of the city with the Blue Spirit, who was not the one to start the rumor about Kuei. That's a false report, we have a mole, and oh yeah, Azula is in Ba Sing Se."

"Well that's good that Katara got out. We keeping hearing that Spirit guy is supposed to be competent. Where are we picking them up?" He looked back and forth when they didn't immediately answer. "What?"

"Aang, that was four days ago," Toph started. "We haven't had any follow up. Not even from Katara, who hates to make us worry. And what Boomerang left out? The Grand Lotus knew Azula was coming for him. We need to get your thoughts in the tent with Hakoda and the generals now, as the Avatar."

He rocked back on his heels. "You're making the rumor true. You're invading Ba Sing Se."

"Yeah," said Sokka, gesturing for Aang to fall in beside him. "We're invading Ba Sing Se."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a tiny slump at work where I could whip out these past two chapters. But I'm taking on bigger and better things! So no promises as to when the next update happens. Thank you so much for reading!


	11. Delicate Moves

Dee slammed the dough down on her table, “beating the sin out of it” as her mother said, as she kept an eye on the young spy fluttering around her kitchen with determination. “Mai” was too earnest and open to have convinced her of all of last night’s tale. Mai had some natural talent, a diamond in the rough at least. Dee would bet Lee – fever broken per Mai’s report – had been born and raised into the business and circumstances had forced him to start teaching his wife on the fly.

 _“Married almost two years.”_ She snorted in suppressed laughter, covered by the flying flour of her kneading. She remembered being two years into marriage. Even in front of a stranger, she wouldn’t have sat so far away. 

“Yes,” she called out in encouragement. “Just like that.” Mai had the frustrated energy of trying to do familiar chores in a different environment. Dee smiled back down at the dough. She was right – they weren’t Earth Kingdom.

The back door cautiously opened and a scarred face peeked through.

“Good morning,” she said with a warm smile. Lee looked like a colonist, especially with those gold eyes sharp as a hawk’s. But that scar – that had been a firebender with intent to kill. However he’d escaped with his life, Dee could not imagine him working for the same people. Especially if he’d married a Water tribeswoman.

 _Six months, tops._ She cut the dough in half, watching the two from the corner of her eye as she formed the two loaves, sliding them into the waiting oven.

Mai’s story made more sense in the light of day. She was caring, but reserved. She’d immediately ushered Lee into a chair in the corner, checking him over without any pretense. She was quick and professional – healer training perhaps? – and her hands did not linger unprofessionally.

Lee, however, was staring at her with a face opened up like a flower to the sun.

Mentally, she gave them three months until that exploded in their faces. Less, if they got any leave and couldn’t distract themselves with work. Mai could think, if she wanted, that he’d only married her to protect her out of some goodness in his heart. Young woman, clearly adrift in a foreign country, non-bender else dishes that morning would have gone differently, no support? It would be all too easy to convince oneself that any romantic interest wasn’t real or trustworthy.

And maybe he’d told her that it would protect her socially and legally more than anything else, that’s all. He might even still think it was true. Dee wasn’t born yesterday though.

His voice was low, soft, unused to murmuring words for just one set of ears but trying. “I am ready whenever you are. The bags are just outside the kitchen door.”

Mai looked back at her, and Dee could not help the smile that curled her mouth. She skirted around the table with practiced ease and gathered two loaves she’d set aside last night with some dried fruit. “Then you’d best be going. Here, to bolster your rations.”

“Oh, no, I told your husband we wouldn’t-“

“I insist, and he can go through me if he has a problem with it.” Mai blushed a little as she accepted the gift. “Go where you need to go. But if you need a place to raise a family, my son-in-law is a gifted carpenter and home-builder. Feel free to visit or stay whenever you have kids.”

Heh, Lee could blush as hard as Mai.

The younger woman clutched the bread to her chest as she murmured more thanks before slipping out the door. Dee grabbed ahold of the young man as he passed by. “Some advice, from one older married couple to a new one. Before you get angry that she’s not hearing what you’re trying to tell her with your eyes, tell her with your words. It will go much better.”

His shoulders tensed in a comic imitation of how a pygmy-puma might raise its hackles when embarrassed. “I’m not- I- Why would you think- I’m not try to tell her anything with my eyes!”

Married almost thirty years, Dee smiled wryly with a nod. “If you say so. Just, keep that in mind.” She bustled him out the door before he could bluster more. “Travel safe, you two. Maybe stick to the roads a bit so you don’t get lost.”

“Thank you for your hospitality! We will not forget it,” promised Mai as she started out, determined with her pack bouncing slightly with her brisk pace. Lee hesitated as he pulled his bag over his shoulder and took his first steps. He looked back, and Dee gave an exaggerated wink. He stiffened, shoulders hunching up and his blush probably deepening, and she laughed, ducking back inside her house so she could freely throw her head back. Oh, she hadn’t laughed like this in too long. 

She looked around her kitchen, clean a few hours early thanks to a second pair of hands. Her husband had left early – for a good spot at the market ostensibly but also to avoid their departing guests. Resolved, Dee gathered some of their dried meat and fruit onto a plate, covered with a cloth in a place where her husband, should he return before dinner, would easily find it. She gathered up a few other odd things to take up the time until the bread was finished baking and could be packed in a small basket, tossed her shawl around her shoulders, and marched out her door as well. It would be a pleasant hour-long walk to her daughter’s, and if she was not too busy Dee intended to spend a warm afternoon soaking in the missed company.

* * *

“Which way are we headed?” Zuko murmured once they were securely on the road, just beyond earshot of the house. He was still faintly pink and stiff with embarrassment from whatever it was that Dee had held him back to share.

Katara tried to give him a reassuring smile. “It’s roughly two days along this road. The map shows not a lot of people along it, so we ought to be able to avoid detection. I thought we could travel along the road as long as it was otherwise empty, diving into the wilderness along the way as necessary to hide.”

“That works for me. By the way, why did you use _Mai_ as an alias for my fake wife?"

She laughed nervously. "To be fair, her name was on my mind. Did that make you uncomfortable? I'm sorry; I should have guessed. You two knew each other." 

"Well, it was kinda awkward- Oh, hold on. You have something on your cheek.”

“What?” She rubbed at her face with both hands and looked back to Zuko for confirmation she’d gotten whatever off.

He stopped in the road. “It’s just flour. Here-” He softly tilted her chin up and to the left with his right hand as his left thumb brushed repeatedly over her cheek – hesitantly gentle yet rough from calluses all at once. She watched his face, his absolute focus on the supposed flour unwavering. At least, it was until his last brush of her cheek, his eyes catching hers. His thumb slowed, as if he’d forgotten what he was doing. The earth seemed to freeze beneath them, the air stand still, as his gaze held hers.

All in a flash, he seemed to remember that turning earth and passing time, and Zuko stepped back quickly like he’d been burned, brushing faint white specks off his thumb as he turned away and started walking again.

Katara took two quick steps to catch up and fall in with him. She let silence settle over them like a wet blanket, uncomfortable and cooling whatever spark his match-like thumb had lit off the flint of her cheek.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Zuko was staring straight ahead, face utterly blank. She huffed a little, not so much from the effort of keeping up but more from the twisted humor of it all. She’d seen enough of him three years ago and in the past week to know that when his brain shorted out, he sputtered and stammered and every iota of emotion was written on his face when words failed him and he couldn’t think straight to tell a leopard-shark from a penguin. Katara – suddenly uncomfortable with the realization – would stake a bottle of good sake that he was thinking about a lot, and wildly.

“Hey, you were a firefighter for three years, right?”

“What- oh, yeah.”

“Save a bunch of kids?”

He gave her a look that implied he was briefly concerned she had a second head. “Yes. Why?”

“Because I think I’ve got you figured out.”

“Oh really?”

Katara smirked as warmly as possible without losing her sense of mischief in her best impression of Toph. “Yep. You’re a firefighter – obviously good at it. Save a bunch of kids, risk your life to do so. You’ll sneak, kill, and fight with impressive talent with those swords of yours, but you’ll hear out a man who should be an enemy and could easily have killed you. And a farmwife made you blush this morning. Face it, Zuko. That rough and tumble stuff is just a mask.” She grinned as he started to sputter in his defense, but she wasn’t done. “You’re a big softie at heart.”

“I am not- I- Katara I’m a prince! I fight- I’ve ki- Katara you-“

She softly punched his shoulder. “Relax. I didn’t say it was a bad thing. Being kind and open to the world’s small, ordinary nice things doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re one powerful bender to have fought of a crowd of bandits without setting a forest on fire. It just means you’re stronger than I think even you would give yourself credit for. Your dad tried to kill you, Zuko. And you got up, turned around, and jumped out a window to sacrifice your life and health to save a kid. I don’t think Azula would do that.”

He didn’t reply, not until they’d walked in silence for a few feet.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I-“ Her words suddenly caught in her throat. “Well, there wasn’t any flour to brush off your cheek.”

“Oh,” he said, in a voice she couldn’t decipher the meaning of.

“You’ve become a good friend, Zuko,” she continued, words bursting forth before she could consider them. “It didn’t feel right to not let you know.”

“I see,” he replied, in a smaller voice she did not know yet. “Um, you’ve become a good friend, too, Katara. I’m very grateful for all you’ve done to keep me alive this week. I- I wish we could have allied earlier.”

She smiled. “We would have been unstoppable.”

He smiled back, tightly, in a way that made her heart clench in worry. But Zuko kept walking in silence, so Katara let it be.

* * *

Azula leaned on the battlement so that she fell into Mai's periphery. "Seems to be more birds than usual."

Mai nearly leapt out of her skin. She hadn't noticed Azula creeping up, assuming the Princess had bothered to hide her steps. "Azula! Forgive me, but you startled me."

The Princess arched an eyebrow in quiet surprise and haughty disappointment. “I know you are mad at me for trying to kill your boyfriend-“

“He is not my boyfriend!” Mai snapped, daring to interrupt Ozai’s heir. “And I’m not mad at you for that.” _Not for doing what would make your father proud._

“Then what are you mad about?”

Mai paused, as if she’d turned a corner in her parent’s country manor and heard the rustle of a surprised rattle-viper. “Your father, now the Fire Lord, and your grandfather, once the Fire Lord, they both tried to kill Zuko, when he was a minor, supposed to be under their protection, and he couldn’t fight back. And they didn’t face any consequences.”

Azula snorted derisively. “I think Mom shoving a knife in granddad’s heart was a pretty big consequence.”

Mai kept her expression as cool as possible. “Does Zuko know?”

The Princess waved a hand, turned to lean her back against the wall, and leveled a bored look at Mai. “If he hasn’t figured it out by now, that it was far too convenient for a healthy bender to just up and die when Mom knew Azulon’s plan, I don’t think he ever will.”

“Azula,” Mai began, stressing the final syllable. “No one outside your immediate family knew of that plot. I doubt your uncle even knew! I assumed your mother had disagreed with your father usurping your uncle. You have to be aware of the myriad of other rumors. I, who understand court machinations, did not think to connect your grandfather’s death to your mother’s disappearance. How could Zuko, famously inept at the social maneuverings required to thrive in your father’s court, have connected them thusly?”

“Well, he is good at emotions and people. Mom loved him, so of course she’d kill to save him.”

“She would have done it for you, too.”

The Princess’s expression shuttered from bored through hurt to as carefully neutral as Mai herself could manage. “Please. My own mother knew I’m a monster.”

“Azula,” Mai started, taking a step forward, but Azula pushed off the wall and away from her.

“We ought to stop airing the royal family drama in front of the commoners, don’t you think? I’ll be planning how to bring the Fire Nation to further glory if you think of anything beneficial to share.”

Mai bowed as her Princess abruptly left. Straightening, she heard the deliberate rustle of robes behind her.

“There are quite a lot of birds out today.”

“They migrate, don’t they,” she replied, bored, as she turned to look at the head of the Dai Li. He was staring off the wall the way she had been before being disturbed. Twice now. As he turned to look at her, she tried to analyze him. She vaguely remembered Long Fen, the malice sloughing off that man was unmistakable. This Dai Li, he actually seemed to bother with pretending and to bother with being unremarkable.

“True. I do not remember them migrating so erratically.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you know something, you should tell Azula.”

His eyes widened a fraction. “Fire Nation citizens should always share what would bring their princess victory. I would never dream to do otherwise as a loyal citizen of Ba Sing Se.”

“Which is in the Fire Nation.”

He nodded, conciliatory. “So it is.” He turned back to look over the vast lands beyond the city walls. “Perhaps then, we should fetch her highness some fowl for her next meal. Does she have a taste for wild game?”

Mai hummed thoughtfully. “Unlike her father and grandfather, Princess Azula is not afraid to take the field in pursuit of what she wants.”

“Yet she would not take after her uncle or brother.”

“Never.”

He hummed thoughtfully, a clever echo of her tone. “A shame then. I should like to one day test my wits against the kind of cleverness that can hide in the most paranoid of cities for years as one of the most hunted men in the known world.”

“I think you overestimate Prince Iroh.”

The Dai Li looked at her again. “And yet, despite mine and your friend’s men searching for several days, we can find no trace of either man until her brother’s exciting escape. So he is either very good at blending in, or very good at getting in and out of the Impenetrable City as quietly and frequently as he pleases.”

Mai just stared blankly back.

He turned back to the wall. "If this is the man her grandfather passed over as heir, I wonder what her father was thinking when he made the same error."

"The Fire Lord is Agni's representative on earth," Mai replied, rote. "He does not err."

The Dai Li hummed curiously as he looked back at her again. "Nor, apparently, do they face consequences." His eyes slid deliberately past hers to glance over her shoulder.

No fool, Mai turned. There was nothing there, however, not even a lazy guard to admonish. She twisted back, and the Dai Li was gone. Utterly silently, and not by foot for the nearest guardhouse was several meters away. No stone rustled in his wake; no seam stood out as recently moved. Panic briefly welled up in her, but she was a stone sinking beneath the waves of the fear. It could not catch hold, for she refused to fight it. It passed over and around her as she turned to follow after Azula's path. 

The birds beyond the walls wheeled and dove in no pattern at all, the few flying in one direct line easily missed.

* * *

A farmwife, happily knitting after an afternoon with her daughter, looks up as her husband arrives home - late - from the day's market.

"How was it, dear? Were the roads rough coming home?"

"It was fine." He slams a small stack of wanted papers on their table. "Here. I brought you some kindling."

She picks up the top one and re-meets their long-departed guests, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribes and the formerly missing Prince of the Fire Nation.


	12. Codes and Tells

She was half a breath from trying a classic flip again that morning when a questioning voice broke her concentration. “Hey, Ty-Lee?”

The acrobat lifted her eyes from the floor to the mess of black on one of the beds, a small feat as she was carefully balanced on one hand splayed on the dresser of their shared room. “What are you thinking, Mai?” With a bend of her elbow, she had enough leverage to flip off the dresser, though not as showy as she’d initially intended.

“The leader of the Dai Li, he knows something important that he’s not telling Azula.”

“Of course he does.” She paused, considered how likely it was for Mai to start a conversation flippantly. “Why do you mention it?”

The blankets rustled, and Mai’s head emerged, still blinking away the night’s sleep. “We talked yesterday, and he was pretty cryptid with his answers. Do you think he’d hurt Azula?”

Ty-Lee frowned in concentration, slipping into a handstand by habit. “I don’t think he wants to. His aura is too clean for that. I don’t think he wants to hurt anybody.”

“Strange for a leader.”

“I think it’s good! If he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, then he’s going to protect them and-”

“I said it was strange, Ty-Lee. Not bad. He was chosen to be the leader of the Dai Li by the last one, which means he probably did hurt people even if he didn’t want to. So he will hurt people if he thinks it’s necessary. Do you think he’d hurt Azula?”

She shook her head, and gracefully fell out of the handstand into a cross-legged seat on the edge of the other bed. “He just wants to protect this city. Hurting Azula won’t help his city, so he won’t.”

Mai rolled further out of the sheets into a sitting position to better meet her eyes. “He wants her – and us – out of Ba Sing Se, though.”

“That’s silly. When Azula leaves for wherever her dad next sends her, the governor-general will take back over, like your parents for Omashu.”

“That’s the thing, Ty-Lee.” Mai crawled to the edge of the bed. “Do you think Azula could take on Prince Iroh? And win?”

“Her uncle? She’s family. He wouldn’t, and he couldn’t hold the city against reinforcements.”

Her gloomy friend shook her head, both shaking away the last vestiges of sleepiness as well as rejecting Ty-Lee’s assessment. “She’s his niece, sure, but at this point, Zuko is his foster son, and she tried to kill him. I don’t think Iroh can let that stand, and I think he’s going to have help.”

“If you’re wrong, and you tell Azula this, someone who just wants to protect people is going to die.”

“Then I think we’d better be sure, don’t you?”

“Oh yes! I love secret missions! Let me just change out of pink.”

* * *

The clattering and shaking of the cart was almost comforting an hour in.

An hour or so out from Dee’s home, Katara and Zuko had managed to flag down a passing cart. With a little haggling over price and clarification of direction, the driver was willing to let the two of them ride along for the rest of the day. With the steady clip of the ostrich horses, even taking into account their need to occasionally walk for a small break, Zuko had somewhat confidently pronounced this ride would save them their second day of travel, getting them to the rendezvous point just before nightfall instead of well into the second day. 

He’d then curled up on the other side of the cart from her and closed his eyes. With his use of his traveling pack to provide some sort of pillow situation, there was no room for Katara to sit near him, so she sat a bit away from him, disappointed and a little confused as to why.

“Zuko?”

He hummed noncommittally in response.

“Are you trying to sleep?”

“Might as well.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t reply, so after a few minutes in silence Katara climbed up towards the front of the cart to speak to the driver. She got a better read on everyday Earth Kingdom life, at least, even if it wasn’t obviously helpful now it might turn out to be.

As Zuko had predicted, they arrived at the crossroads marked on her map just before nightfall. The driver gave them a merry wave as he sped on his way, leaving them alone in the growing darkness with a road cutting through rolling hills behind them and a forest ahead that the road split in two to circumvent.

“Well,” Katara began, memories of their last trek through a forest. “Guess we better start walking.”

“Agreed.”

Zuko led the way, stepping into the protection of the trees first with the stiff shoulders of paranoia well-practiced. Following, Katara was in perfect position to see him jump at every little sound and track every shadow as they made their way through the darkness. Eventually, he seemed so wound up he stopped right in his tracks.

“How much farther?”

“Should just be a few minutes ahead. A clearing should open up. Why do you ask?”

He dropped his pack on the ground. “I’m not going any farther. I’ll stand guard here for any bandits, anyone who might have followed us. But I’m not going to walk into that clearing and get immediately skewered, or keep you from meeting your contact. If they’re a good spy, at all, they’ll know my face and won’t trust me any farther than they could throw me.”

Katara tilted her head. “And how far do you think someone could throw you?”

He smirked, the first one all day, and Katara’s heart jumped a little. Only because she’d been worried about Zuko, and this was a sign he was okay, of course.

“Alright then, I’ll go on alone. I’ll holler if I need you to clean up after any corpses.” She was rewarded with a slight twitch in the corners of his mouth as he tried to repress a no-doubt macabre smile. With that, she brushed past him and deeper into the forest. 

It was even darker under the canopy of leaves, but her sense of direction had been improving the past three years. A couple times, she heard a branch snap nearby. The first time, she tucked herself into the shelter of a tree and strained to listen. When no more sounds followed, she counted to ten and then kept walking. The second time, she simply froze in place. When no more sounds followed, she called out “Zuko? If that’s you, this isn’t funny. Just follow me like a normal human.” He did not materialize, and she heard nothing out of the ordinary for the rest of the short walk. 

When she came upon a clearing, she did not immediately step into it, but took a moment to observe the stillness and silence, as well as the single, flat-top boulder sitting in the center with a single, smaller stone sitting beside it. 

Satisfied, she crept forward to kneel beside the boulder. Picking up the smaller stone, she began to tap the Blind Bandit’s theme song on the boulder – a song she knew in her sleep after years traveling with Toph.

A man materialized, almost, from within the trees in front of her. His sword was drawn, one long blade held pointing towards the ground for now.

“The code’s changed.”

“Excuse me?”

“The code’s changed. Try again.”

Katara stood, drawing her spine ramrod straight and drawing on all the puffed up pride she remembered from being daughter of a chief. “I’m Katara of the Southern Water Tribes. I’m the Avatar’s teacher. The codes don’t change for me.”

The spy shook his head. “The codes had to change.” He started to lift his sword, but froze having only lifted it a few inches. Another blade was sitting on his shoulder, the edge at his neck. As he stood stock still – and Katara’s hands flew to her water skein – the stranger slowly moved around from behind the spy, keeping the blade at his throat without harming him, until visible to both the spy and Katara.

The stranger was dressed head to toe in black, or very dark blue. There was no visible seam for a glimpse of skin or identity – not at their wrists or throat. Over their head they wore a theater mask, high quality, of some sort of blue spirit, one to frighten. They had one hand on the hilt of the blade, the other was offering a pendant on a thin brown cord.

The spy accepted the pendant with one hand and gasped aloud. He lifted it close to his face before staring at the figure in wonder. “The Blue Spirit! We feared you dead.” The figure lifted the blade away from the spy, just enough to give him free breathing room. The spy sheathed his sword, and the figure did the same before holding out their hand. “Oh! Right. Of course. I got a little sentimental. It’s not every day one gets to hold the Earth King’s own ambassador seal.” He handed the pendant back to the stranger.

Katara huffed. “Well. I guess my code is fine then.”

The spy turned to her. “I’m afraid not. I am going to have to take you in-” He took a single threatening step forward as he spoke, but both his words and momentum were cut off by the Blue Spirit, who stepped into his way and jabbed once at the spy’s chest with an open palm.

As the spy reeled back, an obvious look of surprise on his face, the Blue Spirit turned to Katara. They took one hesitant, almost reverent, step forward and bowed deeply from the waist, hands clasped in front of them.

Katara raised an eyebrow when the figure straightened. “Will you, then, take me to Aang?”

The Blue Spirit shook their head sadly and deliberately touched a hand to one of many scrolls tucked in their belt.

“Please? My companion and I, we need guidance.”

They shook their head in denial, and then they turned deliberately to stare at the other spy. The Blue Spirit tilted their head sharply, and the spy threw up his hands. “Fine. I’ll do it, since you say they’re okay. But I will find your superior of this shakes out badly so he can yell at you.”

The Blue Spirit nodded, bowed respectfully to the spy, and then handed him one of the scrolls from their belt.

They turned back to Katara. Slowly, they touched one gloved hand to the center of their masked forehead, then to their heart, and, fingers splayed across their chest, they bowed again.

“What-”

The Blue Spirit took off running into the trees, silent and terrifying as the color of their clothing made them vanish almost within a blink of entering the shadows. 

“That’s the Blue Spirit? Who are they?”

“The Blue Spirit?” The spy was unrolling the scroll as he spoke. “No one knows their identity, except the Earth King I think. I think he’s also the only one who knows that agent’s specific role-” he trailed off into confused silence before a “heurk” of surprise leapt from his throat.

“Oh what now?” He merely turned the scroll around so she could read. “Advice to Avatar Aang and his companions on their Invasion of Ba Sing Se from Retired General Iroh of the Fire Nation. And?”

The spy eyed her with something like fear and something like respect. “He’s offering his help, claiming to be in Ba Sing Se as of four days ago, but saying his nephew is unavailable - his nephew, the exiled son of Ozai – because he’s escorting you.”

“That is correct. We fought Azula together to escape Ba Sing Se.”

“That’s your companion? What is this resistance coming to? Alright. Go get him. I’ll be hiding until your return.”

Katara re-traced her steps in the dark, which was quite easy after a couple minutes because she could hear movement and saw brief flashes of light. She hurried forward, but only for a few feet. Zuko was practicing some kata without stifling his flames. She watched as the movements took him slowly in a circle, ending stretched out.

She did not know firebending, but she had a feeling this wasn’t a dance to be done alone.

Deliberately, she stepped on a twig as she started forward again. He jumped out of form, sweating a little from exertion as he met her gaze. She smiled in reassurance. “Come on; we’re both welcome. I made sure of it.”

He nodded and, grabbing their bags, replied, “Never doubted you for a moment.”

* * *

Aang was tapping his hands on the map at the back of the tent when he saw Toph’s feet next to him subtly shift in the lantern light. Hearing a whistle in the air, he turned and caught the scroll that was flying through the air towards him. Buru, leaning into the tent, gave him a brief salute.

“Three-fold delivery for you, Avatar.”

He ducked back out, and Aang turned to the scroll. He started to unroll it when the tent flap fluttered again. Any hope of reading his letter was spoiled when Sokka suddenly burst around the table, shoulder-checking Aang in his haste. Aang looked up to see Sokka’s solid bulk of blue crash into a figure in brown, Toph close behind. 

Katara murmured into her brother’s chest, “Okay, I need air” but it was too late – Aang barreled into the group hug as well, letter forgotten on the map table.

“Where were you? We were so worried!”

Katara leaned back to reply to her brother. “We ran into a little trouble getting back out of Ba Sing Se after stealing some papers from the Dai Li. There were some bandits that-” 

“We?”

Toph’s toes clenched the dirt at Sokka’s question, and she turned her sightless gaze over Katara’s shoulder. “No way.”

The two guys followed her lead and looked up to see Zuko of all people standing there.

“Uh, hi. Um, Zuko here.”

“Three-fold delivery,” Aang muttered to himself as both Sokka and Katara scrambled backwards.

“Everyone-” Katara’s sharp tone cut over her brother’s blossoming rebuke. “Meet Zuko, who helped me get into the Dai Li’s office, escaped Ba Sing Se with me, and defended my life multiple times in trying to get me back to you guys. He’s here to help. The letter confirms it.”

Sokka twisted back to grab the scroll, but Aang was two steps ahead of him, a gust of wind easily carrying him out of the larger boy’s reach and carefully onto the table where he could quickly read over the letter in relative peace.

Saving the bigger revelation for later, Aang asked, “How did you get this, Katara?”

“I didn’t get it. Your spy should be able to confirm it, but the Blue Spirit gave it to him. We just happened to be contacting the spy at the same time. Lucky for me.” She crossed her arms. “Imagine. He didn’t know who I was.”

“You gotta be careful all the time, sis. There’s no guarantees in war.”

“But-”

Zuko put a hand on her shoulder, and Katara bit back her words to look at him. Something twisted in Aang’s gut.

“Your brother is right, as frustrating as it was for you. Besides, you were there with Uncle. We had proof there was a leak, though not who it was. Codes have to change for safety. It would’ve been cleared up in a few minutes of interrogation.”

“Uncle!?”

Sokka: never paying attention to the important stuff, like how is headstrong sister just cut off a rant at a touch from their past enemy and was placated by his words. 

“Yeah,” Aang started, ignoring his feelings. He waved the letter. “This is from Retired General Iroh; he wanted to give me some advice on invading Ba Sing Se. He also promised his full support from his network inside the walls. Iroh does confirm Katara’s story. They met, and he made Katara and Zuko get out before Azula could pounce.” Aang paused. “He says he misses you, Zuko, but he’s proud.”

The Fire Nation prince blushed red. 

Toph pointed a finger at Katara. “Hold up. The Grand Lotus said you were breaking out with the Blue Spirit. But you said you broke out with Zuko.” Aang was glad to be standing on the table, where the parchment and wood would conceal his heartbeat from Toph. Her finger snapped to Zuko. “I think you have a secret to confess, Prince Ponytail.”

Embarrassed pride turned indignant as he sputtered. “But-wha- I – I don’t even have a pony tail anymore thanks to you guys!”

Sokka turned with a gleam in his eye to Zuko, gently thumping the cackling Toph. “Answer her question.”

Zuko glanced at Aang before turning back to Sokka and Toph. “I have no idea what secret Toph could want me to spill. I know Azula loves to make a show when she’s on the hunt, so of course m- the Grand Lotus would use me as bait to get her off the trail of the Blue Spirit, draw her fire. He knows I can take it. Did you guys check any of the gates the day we left?”

“Okay, well, none of us were _there_ except you two and-”

Aang piped up, “I heard there was a fire near one of the gates that morning, hitting Fire Nation barracks.”

Toph crossed her arms, clearly about to say something, but Katara cut her off. “Look, you guys, casting accusations on Zuko isn’t going to get us anywhere. We need to sleep and then hear the plan in the morning so we can help.”

“And Zuko is going to help.” Sokka’s voice was flat.

“Of course!”

“I’d rather hear it from him.”

“He saved our lives!”

“Hey guys-”

“Three years ago! What’s he done to help us since then?”

“Saving my life this week doesn’t count to you, huh?”

“That’s really unfair-”

“Hey guys-”

“Why won’t just trust him-”

“Trust him? Him?!”

Aang knifed his hands through the air, a gust of wind following his call to blow the fighting siblings apart as he yelled, “guys!”

“What?” They both yelled back, turning on him from where they lay on opposite sides of the tent. Zuko was still standing in the entrance to the tent, stance strong and bent just enough that he hadn’t been knocked over. Toph had partially sank into the earth, and, as Aang let silence settle after the Water Tribe siblings’ question, she started to laugh.

“Ah man, nothing ever changes with you guys. In the best way.”

“As the Avatar, I’m telling everyone to go to bed. Toph, you show Katara where we’re sleeping. Zuko, you can sleep with us if you like or I’m sure Chief Hakoda can find you a bunk.”

“I’d rather be near your group, if that’s alright.”

Sokka snorted. “You’re really gonna let the dude who chased you halfway around the world bunk with us? Where he can stab us in the middle of the night?”

“Sokka!” Katara snapped, chiding, but Zuko only shrugged nonchalantly, replying, “Hey, it beats being stabbed by one of your father’s men in the middle of the night.”

“Obviously! Who wouldn’t choose to do the stabbing instead of getting stabbed if they could?”

“So you’ll let me sleep where I’m in stabbing range of you?”

Sokka narrowed his eyes. “Awfully trusting, aren’t you? That’s a little suspicious.”

Zuko shrugged again. “Not if I know you couldn’t get close enough to get me.”

“Oh yeah?” Sokka scrambled to his feet, but Zuko was already crouched, having pulled a knife from somewhere, and waiting with a satisfied grin.

“Yeah.”

“That’s unfair. We’re having a proper spar tomorrow.”

“Oh good. It will be so nice to safely practice with someone who knows what they’re doing, not fools with no technique I have to kill.”

Sokka sighed. “I hear you there. Come on, let me show you our corner.” He brushed past Zuko as the prince tucked his knife back away. Sokka grabbed the two small packs sitting outside the tent, dodged Zuko’s attempt to grab one, and led him away from the tent. Their light bickering drifted back through the air as Aang turned his focus to Katara.

“I missed you.”

She smiled like the sun. “I missed you, too.” And then she turned away, extending a hand to Toph. “I missed all of you. I wish you could have broken into the Earth King’s palace with me.”

His heart sinking a little, he just listened as she and Toph swapped notes on what it was like to sneak through a Ba Sing Se fortress with Zuko on a secret mission. He didn’t know what to say anymore. Everything had been so simple before Ba Sing Se, before the comet didn’t come. 

“Why did you go,” he suddenly interrupted.

Katara and Toph glanced at him before Katara replied, “I don’t really know. We had other ways to verify the rumor, but it felt like I had to go. Me, specifically, and it was a need from outside me, you know? Like something calling me into Ba Sing Se and the plaza where his firefighting squad was that night.”

Toph tilted her head questioning, “He was a firefighter? That’s genius. Being surrounded by his element without giving himself away.”

Aang tuned them out again as that incessant tug pulled on him again. _A call from outside yourself. But how to listen, and not abandon them when they need me?_

“Are you coming?”

He shook himself back to where his two friends were looking up to him. “Uh, yeah.” He hopped down, following them out the tent. “Going to bed was my idea after all.”

Katara smiled at him again. “Setting a good example as the Avatar?”

“You know, if it was two hundred years ago I still wouldn’t know I was the Avatar? I don’t have to be a good example until I’m sixteen.”

“I don’t think you’re two hundred years old.”

“Did I say two hundred? I meant three hundred.”

Toph gave him a good _thwap_ on the shoulder and he stumbled into their small corner of the camp - well-defended on all sides by grown, trained adults who'd made it clear they didn't want _Aang_ hurt in addition to protecting the Avatar. It was nice. Much less nice was how Sokka and Zuko had laid out two more bed rolls to complete the circle around the fire, and then chosen opposite sides. He watched, unable to stop it, as Katara moved to the side with only one roll between them to crack a joke, laugh, end up sitting down and drawing the two into a light conversation.

He felt a hand in his, grimy and warm, and he looked down to see the top of Toph's head. "Come on, Twinkletoes. Take the one on the other side of Sokka. It's gonna be okay."

"I know that."

"I still think it's funny that you think you can lie to me," she replied softly and not unkindly, tugging him towards the group. He went with it, let the fire warm his face and some of the jokes crack a smile. Like Guru Pathik said years ago, he had to let go. Didn't make it any easier now that it was hitting him in the face.

Aang looked to the west, where that call still tugged, but huffed and turned away, back to his friends.

_And a jungle island swam ever onwards..._


	13. Conversations and Changes

Katara breathed evenly, finding a rhythm in the rushing over the small stream over rocks and her feet. At its deepest, the stream was barely knee-deep, but it was enough for today’s needs. Aang was the only one left with her after the planning this morning. They were passing water back and forth as if it was three years ago and things were simpler, including practicing.

He looked at her before spinning around with the water, making things a little fancier. She grinned, spreading one mass into three, braiding them to race up above her head before rushing the single strand back into Aang’s control. The playfulness escalated until Aang passed the water back with an excellent imitation of his mini air-spout trick and “so, Zuko.”

She almost dropped the water – it definitely fell out of the mini-spout – in her surprise.

_The Earth Kingdom General frowned as Hakoda sketched out the barebones of his idea. “Are you sure we should be discussing this with the enemy among us?”_

_Hakoda shot her a subtle glare where she was standing, arms crossed, next to Zuko. The prince at least looked uncomfortable as did Sokka. Katara refused to let anything but cool detachment show. Her dad could – and probably would if he could catch her – reprimand her later. But in front of outsiders, she knew her chief. He’d default to protecting the tribe against even allies. He looked at the other man standing around the map with him and Aang. “General Long, I appreciate your caution. However, not only is the young man neither enemy nor threat, according to the Avatar, but who would he tell?”_

_“I am beginning to tire of listening to adolescents in this war.”_

_Katara’s weight settled onto one foot, slightly behind the other. “Then perhaps you ought to contact your king, since the whole reason I made it out of the city was thanks to Fire Nation royalty, and the king’s favorite operative brought Aang a letter from General Iroh.”_

_“I believe your expertise is in waterbending, not strategy and spies?”_

_Zuko deliberately leaned his shoulder into hers, and she only replied, “I will defer to the wisdom of my chief.”_

_Hakoda’s look promised a strong discussion later, but he replied levely, “I am unwilling to turn away a possible ally, and I have faith in the ones I currently have to deal with any new problems. Can we please continue? I would like to have a plan to offer the Earth King’s emissary when he arrives today.”_

_So the youths had snuck away as soon as they could, Katara and Aang starting to mess around with waterbending. Toph had played with the river pebbles until Sokka convinced Zuko to stop meditating and go hunting, as she found their plans for the afternoon much more riveting._

“What about Zuko?”

Aang didn’t look at her as she passed the water back. He focused only on the multiple strands of water he braided and unbraided as he spun it around behind his back to pass it back to her. “I guess, I’m curious as to how you got to trust him in a week when three years ago when we last saw him we were all itching to fight him.”

“He jumped out of a burning second story window to save a kid, which would have seriously hurt him had I not followed the house fire to try and help.” 

“I always thought he and I could be friends-”

“I know that-”

“But you always resisted it. We always knew he wasn’t the worst of the people after us, that he actually had some semblance of a conscience. What made you trust him, travel with him?”

Katara sighed. “It kind of snowballed. A citizen of Ba Sing Se, a fellow firefighter, he tried to scare me off a little and protect him. I wanted to know how that happened. Then I ended up in the back room of his uncle’s tea shop swapping credentials and confirming we’re on the same side. They’re working with the Earth King, Aang. And Aang, he saved my life. He nearly killed himself trying to protect me. I could easily imagine you or Sokka doing the same; why shouldn’t I trust him?”

“I don’t think it’s like Sokka at all,” he muttered. Clearing his throat, Aang finally looked at her. “And the Blue Spirit?”

“What about him?”

“You’re not worried at all about the source of the rumor that almost got you caught by Azula?”

“No? Oh, you weren’t there yet this morning. General Long’s men followed the chain of the rumor and didn’t find anyone who had recorded contact with the Blue Spirit or would have reason to, and they did end up finding a lot of, um, hurt agents.”

Aang dropped the water into the stream. “They were killed weren’t they? By whoever started the rumor?”

“Well, we don’t know that.”

“But they are dead.”

Katara nodded.

“You have to stop this! I’m fifteen now, and I’ve been a part of this war for three years now! You can’t protect me!”

“Can’t I try?”

“No!” He visibly clamped down on the instinct to airbend, and he stepped out of the stream. “No, you need to stop. I’m not a kid anymore, and I can’t be one again, Katara.” He sighed, holding up a hand as he marshalled his thoughts. “Some part of you is always going to see me as the twelve year old, lost, who just needs help, won’t it?”

“Aang, that’s not fair.”

He looked down. “I know. But I think it’s true. It’s not- it’s not inherently bad. I mean, Hakoda probably also thinks of his little daughter every time he looks at you, even if he still treats you like the adult you’ve proven yourself to be.” He shifted on his feet before looking her in the eyes. “I don’t like it, but that doesn’t mean you should pretend people aren’t dying while I avoid fighting the Fire Lord. But I haven't mastered fire. And you- Katara you just brought a firebender into camp who you trust. I’m going to go rescue him from Sokka and Toph’s hazing, and maybe he’ll teach me some things about fire so I can fight his dad.”

“Aang, I’m sorry-”

“I know, Katara. Just, let me be mad. Because I- as much as I want to, I can’t let you just take all these problems away from me, deflecting or fixing them for me. You let your brother get himself into stupid situations. It’s past time you did the same for me.”

“Well I know Sokka can handle the consequences,” she snapped reflexively. Katara clapped her hands over her mouth as Aang raised furrowed eyebrows. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I think Gyatso would be proud of how much you care, Katara. But I'm realizing-," he broke off that sentence and sighed. "We're still kids. I can save the world, and I will, but that doesn't magically make me right about everything or have it all figured out. I think you need to remember that, too."

With one last sad smile, Aang walked into the trees towards camp, leaving Katara alone with her thoughts.

* * * 

Ty Lee turned around the office, hands on her hips as she surveyed it before looking at her friend. “You know, you’d think for the head of a secret police he’d really spruce up his space.”

Mai, rifling through his bookshelves, paused to glance at her partner. “That’s how we know he’s good. He’s not drawing attention to himself nor is he completely invisible.” She moved to the next shelf. “He’s trying to exist in the space you expect a loyal servant to operate so he’s free from suspicion. It’s worked so far, but if there’s anything to find that’s ending tonight.”

“If you say so.”

“Good evening ladies.”

Ty Lee spun to face the voice as one of Mai’s knives whistled through the air. It caught on green fabric, pinning the shoulder seam of Sheng Tzu’s shirt to the wall both girls had inspected earlier. He didn’t flinch, just maintained that calm expression and even breathing that Ty Lee honestly admired.

“I would offer you a drink in proper hospitality, but I am afraid the Fire Prince and his companion greatly prefer improvised weapons. I have not had the chance to acquire more.”

She had to know who trained him. His voice was on the surface calm, but speaking betrayed his aura. He was furious. He was also scared, decently so to have them suddenly in his office, but he was mostly angry. Everything coiled around him in tight cords twisting around themselves so he could keep playing the part he’d been quietly playing for years before Azula stepped into his trap.

Ty Lee caught that thought, rocking forward and drawing the gaze of the other two. She smiled innocently. “Why don’t I get that-”

Mai flung another knife, catching Sheng Tzu’s other shoulder seam. “You were supposed to be leading your trainees in drills. What are you up to?”

As the Dai Li looked, carefully considering, back at Mai, Ty Lee examined that moment of intuition. Ba Sing Se was a trap. But for whom? Azula was too easy an answer, not to mention the last time the Dai Li tried to take her, she twisted the trap back on them and the city was lost. It couldn’t be Zuko – the Dai Li hadn’t known who’d attacked him until Azula figured it out. Or at least that’s what Azula said. As Ty Lee eyed the Dai Li, she was a little worried that her princess didn’t have as good of a read on him as she thought.

His slippered foot curled, and a panel in the floor popped open, a stone handle on one side where that not even been a seam before. “To secure what I have found in searching old records and information from my predecessor, I have had to make accommodations while I wait for my new desk, hence hiding my intelligence in the floor. I would not hold back anything from the agents of the princess.”

On impulse, Ty Lee flung herself forward, landing on one foot on the panel, pressing it closed. “This is a trap. I don’t know how.”

Mai’s eyes narrowed, staring at the floor. “A trap? As in projectiles flying at my face or snaring my hand when I grab the evidence?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head as a conclusion dawned on her. “I- I think the information itself is a trap.” Ty Lee placed her other foot on the floor as she turned to Sheng Tzu, head tilted. “The whole city is a trap, isn’t it? A mess of nets and snares, coiling tight around anyone who gets in too deep, and it’s indiscriminate. You’re just as caught as anyone else. But if everyone else is caught, too, you have the home field advantage. You’re used to it. Resigned to it.”

He didn’t reply, not with words. But the corners of his mouth twitched, as if he might smile, and he gave her the smallest of proud nods.

“Let me see it for myself, Ty Lee.”

“If, if we don’t want things to change between us three, I think we have to leave right now. We need to get Azula and cut our way out of the snare that’s about to pull tight.”

Mai knelt and grabbed a hold of the handle. “Azula is trying to catch Zuko, and here gives her the resources to sit and wait for him to reveal himself before she strikes, like a spider in its web. I don’t think she’ll listen to us when we say we need to leave.”

“Is she trying to _catch_ him?” Sheng Tzu asked as Ty Lee stepped away and Mai pulled the small bundle of papers into the light.

When Mai paused on a sheet, Ty Lee moved to read over her shoulder with one last look at the man who could escape their efforts just as soon as he wanted to.

_Piando, stand down. You must quiet this unrest, not stir it up. I wish to mourn my son, and I am happy to hand responsibility over to my brother who’s sat at our late father’s side while I was at war. We learned different skills. It will be well; he will lead the Fire Nation well. You will see._

_Find the source of these rumors, if you can. Ursa was my brother’s beloved wife. He could no more act against her or despise her son than any man could of his own beloved._

_Iroh._

And then, a fragment dated two years later,

_-not as bad as the rumors say. He still has his sight, though it will take some time to relearn balance._

_I am sorry, old friend. If I knew then what I know now, I perhaps would not have stayed your hand as I did. Still, it is best you are with us, protecting your domain as a proper Fire Nation nobleman. I wish we could take advantage of a friendly harbor, but I will not invite my brother’s wrath upon you._

_You were right. He wants my nephew dead. Why, I do not know. He and I are proof enough that the elder heir can be set aside, though perhaps he has some plan he is unwilling to gamble on a personal tragedy to bring his favored child to easy inheritance._

_But he will live. His loyalty saved him, and I see clearly now. Whether my nephew inherits or is the head of a cadet branch, he will be the young man who risked his life trying to save a battalion of young men he’d never even met._

_Spread_ that _rumor, old friend, until we can meet again._

This one was unsigned, but the hand was both identical and unmistakable to a nobleman’s daughter like Mai.

“How did you get these? I remember the rumors he writes of in the first letter and how they then suddenly quieted. They had to have reached their destination.”

Sheng Tzu nodded once. “Long Feng knew that anyone could be bought, if you can find a high enough price. Servants, even well paid ones, are always a good investment.”

Mai seemed to tremble as she placed the papers back into the floor, not even bothering to sneak one into her sleeve. Ty Lee blinked. That was a little worrying, though perhaps sensible with an earthbender who’d clearly chosen refined and delicate skill over flashy power.

“You were right, Ty Lee. It was a snare.”

She bit her lip. “We can cut and run, still. You and me.”

Mai rose to her feet as the panel vanished as if it never was. “Ty Lee, if you can still leave, go for it.” She moved to the Dai Li and pulled her knives free. She backed away from the spider as one would from a predator as he brushed at the fabric on his shoulders. “I don’t think I can ignore what I know anymore.” With a knife twirling between her fingers, she leveled a strong gaze at the Dai Li. “Where is General Iroh?”

He froze, genuinely startled, fear twisting around him again. “You don’t know? I was hoping you did. We genuinely cannot find him – every lead leads to long-abandoned dead ends, somehow. There’s a loose Fire Nation general in my city, and two different groups of spies cannot find him.”

With the knife now still and pointed at the Dai Li, Mai replied, "Then however you react, remember this: I will not betray Azula. I will side with you, but I will take no action that leads to her harm and I will hunt you down personally if she is killed. You understand that? She is my friend."

"Such loyalty to the woman who tried to kill your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," Mai replied calmly, the bored and detached mask in place once more. Her hand twitched, and the knife she'd been holding caught Sheng Tzu's sleeve as he lifted his right arm. Only then did she turn away and glide out the door in a soft rustle of dark silk. Ty Lee dropped a brief curtsy before dashing to catch up to Mai in the hall.

"What's going on? Your aura's as solid as I've ever seen it, but I seriously thought you were gonna betray Azula back there. He did, too."

The noble girl, daughter of wealthy and powerful vassals of Firelord Ozai, narrowed her eyes slightly as she stalked forward. "If he hasn't figured out who I'm really after, all the better."

"You know I'm with you, to the end. Both of you."

Mai only nodded, but Ty Lee didn't mind. It was a piece of normalcy she could cling to as the foundation of the world seemed to weaken a little beneath her.

* * * 

"Hey Zuko?"

He turned to look at the Avatar. "What do you need?"

"Lessons."

Zuko blinked. Twice. But Aang was still there, the kid he'd hunted halfway across the world, looking at him seriously in the forest where Toph and Sokka had left Zuko. "I'm sorry, did you say you wanted lessons? What could I possibly teach you?"

Aang gestured at all of Zuko. "Firebending. I've been practicing the little bits of basics I've picked up along the way, but I'm not a master. I know training means that you're helping the man who is going to fight your dad, but I'm hoping that you can help anyway. Everyone seems super mad at Jeong Jeong for teaching me a little bit and then tossing me out."

"He what!"

"I mean, yeah it was super rude but I did push him into teaching me-"

"No, no, Aang. We all know Jeong Jeong's messed up. But to not only see a young bender who needs help, needs training, and not just turn them away without helping? He taught you a little bit and _then_ turned you away?" Zuko sighed. "I get that Jeong Jeong hates his element. He shouldn't have given you a taste of firebending, then."

"That is how Katara figured out she could heal though."

Zuko raised an eyebrow. "And was that worth it?"

"Well, I did swear off firebending for a while, because she got hurt. So, um, not really?"

"Even if I didn't want you to stop Ozai, I would still teach you what I know, Aang, when we have the time for it. You shouldn't kept from your element - well, I guess you have many."

"Do you want to start now?"

He looked so hopeful, so eager, Zuko sighed. "Sure. Let's find a spot with some sand. I want to figure out what you know, first."


	14. Arrived

Hakoda watched his daughter like she was an undetonated bomb, or perhaps a leopard seal he’d stumbled upon across the same fishing hole.

For her part, she actually seemed chastised before he had even said anything, which made him that much warier. It was a fine line to walk between father and chief, and he worried sometimes he chose the wrong role in the wrong moments.

“So,” he began, testing the ice. “Zuko.”

With a frustrated noise, Katara threw her hands up in a gesture he knew so well. “Why does everyone keep asking me about him? There’s nothing to tell!”

Hakoda settled some of his weight onto the tent’s desk. “Usually when teenage girls say that about equally young boys, there’s quite a bit to tell.”

She shot him a look of confused rage, of betrayal mixed with embarrassment. “Dad!” He raised an eyebrow, and she huffed, crossing her arms. “Like he said, we became good friends on the accidental adventure. That’s all.”

He chuckled, despite himself, before leveling his own stern look. “Katara, you showed immense disrespect to an ally today. Now, yes, I know, if he were Water Tribe it wouldn’t have been the same. But I’ve been trying to learn Earth Kingdom customs, to understand their ways and use them to our benefit. Rank means more to them, is seen as an indication of character when taken to the extreme. He thinks poorly of us both for this morning.”

“Well that’s ridiculous.”

“Katara.”

She winced at the tone of his voice, but he didn’t regret it. Sometimes, he did need to be her chief. “I thought these past few years taught you better than that.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Or is there something else that’s wrong?”

“Aang accused me of still treating him like a helpless twelve year old.”

“Mmmm. Yes, it can be difficult to accept one’s kids have grown.”

“He’s not my kid though!”

Hakoda raised an eyebrow. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed over the past three years when our paths crossed how you act within the group outside of a fight. You grew up too fast. We all did. I wish Kanna could have shielded you from more responsibilities. You tried to be Sokka’s mom, so of course you’d do it for Aang.”

“Well, neither of them could take care of themselves.”

He chuckled. “Then Sokka hasn’t thought of what he’d do on a real warrior’s hunt, away for months with no woman of the tribe to darn your socks for you.” His expression sobered. “Katara. There is an important difference between being someone’s parent and someone’s partner, and a difference between being a parent and an enabler. Aang - spirits, that boy also grew up too fast – has recognized that. I was worried for a while that he wouldn’t.”

His daughter crossed her arms. “I’m a little tired of getting philosophical lectures today.”

“Welcome to adulthood, Katara. The personal growth tends to hit at inconvenient-”

A messenger barged into the tent, breathless. “Chief-”

“I’m in the middle of something, Natar.”

“The envoy of the Earth King is almost here.”

“And I’ll be right there.”

“Hakoda.” The messenger took a deep breath. “Kuei came with them.”

“Well damn. Katara, we’ll pick this up later. Apparently, I’m going to meet a king today.”

* * *

The traveling party looked normal to Zuko from where he was standing in the middle of camp watching the approach. He was sandwiched between Hakoda and the Earth Kingdom general from that morning, which was uncomfortable, as was the semi-formal top knot he had hastily fought his hair into, but when was Zuko ever allowed to be comfortable?

The party rode through the palisade gate, and as they did so they unfurled multiple banners, green and ostentatious.

To Zuko’s left, every single Earth Kingdom citizen bowed down, including the general. As some Water tribesmen carefully knelt onto their left knee, heads high, Zuko leaned to Hakoda. “Have you met Kuei before?”

“Once or twice. Good kid, if a little bookish.”

“Kneel,” hissed the general at their side.

Zuko looked down and met the man’s side-eyed glare. Hakoda's strong hand around his elbow kept him from doing anything, however, even if it only applied the slightest forward pressure as if to suggest he start walking.

"You can apologize later, General, for suggesting a foreign prince kneel to a king not his own." And a chief of the Southern Water Tribes, currently representing them all, strode ahead to meet the Earth King as if it was the most natural thing. The Earth King, having gracefully dismounted from his ostrich-horse, brightened to see them both - and if that wasn't the final nail in the coffin of the general's good graces towards Zuko, well, then Azula would renounce the throne and take up earth bending. 

Keeping pace, Zuko leaned toward Hakoda. "That will have cost you."

Precious few steps away from his largest and only real military ally, Hakoda glanced at Zuko. It was different from the side-eye of the general. Where that had been full of malice, this was measuring. And Zuko, even well-fed as a valuable firefighter through his growth spurt, knew he still came up short against the older warrior's frame.

"Not as much as it would have cost you."

That didn't make _any_ sense as an answer-

“Prince Zuko! How delightful to meet you in person finally! I did not expect such a treat when we set out to hear this invasion plan first hand.”

Zuko bowed in greeting towards the Earth King ringed by a few Dai Li. “My uncle sends his regards and his regrets that he could not be here as well. Hopefully, we can soon arrange a meeting. He would be sure to thank your men and the Water Tribes for their hospitality so far.”

Kuei looked past him to the gathered men, gesturing for them to rise, which the few Water Tribesmen kneeling did instantly. Kuei's own citizens took their time, though with another gesture the general hurried up. "General! No doubt you have much to report, and you know how I value your expertise. Perhaps, while my escorts settle in, we could take tea together that I might give you my full attention?"

The general bowed in pleasure, and with Kuei's polite goodbyes to the foreigners they glided away.

"A bit bookish," Zuko repeated quietly as the hum of the camp returned to normal. "How does a bookish king shut in from reality charm the general that skillfully? He was going to explode knowing that Kuei knows who I am."

"He was not as practiced three years ago, no. Don't discount, of course, that the general wants to like Kuei. You would do just as well in his place."

He shook his head. "I'm not good with people. Maybe Court in the Earth Kingdom is different, but in the Fire Nation... I was a mess."

Hakoda made a sound of contemplation, and it could have been an older Sokka vocalizing. That measuring gaze was back, though, and wholly the chief's own as he looked Zuko up and down. "This was six years ago, yes? You were thirteen?"

Out of habit, Zuko jerked his chin up. "I was old enough to sit in the war room. I was old enough to fight an Agni Kai!"

Something that reminds him of Uncle crosses Hakoda's face. "That wasn't what I asked. We ought to get lunch anyway. Come along. I'd like to look at your uncle's letter one more time, if Aang will let me."

The camp largely ignoring them with a king to suck up to in residence, the exiled Fire Nation prince wandered back together with the leader of the Southern Water Tribes into the latter's private tent.


End file.
